


Fait Accompli(cation)

by IntelligentAirhead, obstinateRixatrix



Series: F(A) [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: (tho no lie it's primarily the second one), Dave is autistic btw, Just So We're Clear, M/M, Meteorstuck, POV Karkat Vantas, PTSD, Retcon Timeline, Slow Burn, Terezi is going to be bombarded with friendship attempts, Vriska and Gamzee are also there, You know we can't have meteorstuck without some rosemary thrown in, quadrant meta, rivals to friends to lovers, spoiler alert: Rose & Karkat are going to be Good Friends, toxic masculinity discussions, toxic society discussions in general really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-06-03 03:25:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 77,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6594667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IntelligentAirhead/pseuds/IntelligentAirhead, https://archiveofourown.org/users/obstinateRixatrix/pseuds/obstinateRixatrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Which a Mutant and an Alien Meander Towards a Quadrant of Indeterminate Identity at a Glacial Pace While Examining the Internalized Toxicity Perpetuated by Their Respective Societies, and The Nature of Friendship is Determined to Be More Universal Than Originally Theorized [Banned In Alternia]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Factory is Open for Business

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Space is Not The Final Frontier But Is Instead Like a Jackass Landlord That Won’t Let You Out of Your Lease for Three More Years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of the dialogue is lifted from Act 6, but for the most part it's all us yo  
> grab your seatbelts we’re in for a long ride
> 
> EDIT FROM THE FUTURE: [a link to download the annotated fic + bonus material](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B3nrcugKG76AMmZrWUtxQjF5NjA?usp=sharing)

You know you’d have to be a feculent self-centered wiggler to take Sollux’s decision personally, but fuck it— you are, and you do. And you know what? You think you deserve to indulge your own emotions a little, considering the fact that the past few hours have been a _slight_ motorized amusement palanquin of events. You started off with your very own dream death, descended into somehow being sucked into the lives of the four aliens that ruined yours, ended up fearing for your life during the unprompted corpse party in which not one, not two, but _three_ of your teammates decided the universe could sure use a lot less trolls (despite your already diminished numbers), but then! The sudden revival of two and a half of those corpses, the sudden arrival of two whole aliens (wow! Integers! You have never been more relieved at the existence of integers), learning you’ve now got more than a sweep— fuck, almost _one and a half_ of them (and there they go, abandoning you to your fate like the callous taintchafing fucks they are)— to kill as this large oubliette of a rock hurtles towards— what, an alternate universe? A hard reset? Certain death? You’re a little fuzzy on the details.

Bottom line, you feel kind of. Abandoned. No, not kind of. You feel absolutely abandoned, actually. But you guess you can understand and respect the decision of your half-living bro. Who you have half a chance of running into whenever you bumble through a series of ‘dream bubbles’, apparently, or who you may never see again, so then again, maybe you can't! In fact you’re about to charge into some flagrantly emotional tantrum you’re sure to regret later when, out of nowhere, what seems to be a rip in the fabric of space bursts into the air in front of you. Being as eloquent and expressive as you are, you respond with enough linguistic finesse to rival the most diplomatic tactician that ever lived.

“What the fuck?”

Then there’s a bucket flying at you and your only thought is, “Holy shit,” before it slams against your face and you hit the ground with the grace of a load gaper knocking through a wall.

You lie there on your back, taking in the fact that a bucket just hit you in the face, and you don’t know where it’s been, and oh, for the love of the unholy night terrors that haunt your waking dreams, Serket is staring down at you with a fucking smirk on her face, and now would be a great time to just fucking die. Let Aradia and Sollux cart your body around so that the corpse party never ends and you can escape this nightmare dimension where you’ve just had a _bucket_ thrown at your head and _Serket saw_.

“Looks like I woke up just in time,” she says, bending over with her hands on her hips as if to punctuate just how humiliating your current situation is. Terezi’s laughing too, and isn’t that just an additional kick to your already bruised shame globes. You can’t tune out the grating sound of her cackles, but you can at least avert your gaze _except_ _wait_! That just means you get the added pleasure of watching the humans as they use their front-row seats to this _shitstorm_ to process your abject humiliation. At the very least Kanaya and Aradia look more concerned than amused (which doesn’t actually make you feel any better), and you’re not even going to bother with Sollux.

You sit up and rub at your cranial plate before swiping behind you to grab the offending bucket. You gingerly reach into the vulgar receptacle, carefully avoiding any direct contact, and remove the note. It starts with an inappropriately chipper “hey everybody!” and it only goes downhill from there.

It’s the last. Fucking. Straw

“Are you kidding me? Are you _kidding me_ right now? Is every sequence of events in this repugnant session a conspiracy to generate the prototypical singularity of humiliation featuring yours truly? I get it! Karkat is the malignant tumor behind every single alluvion of catastrophe by the unfortunate reality of his existence, and must be appropriately punished! No caliber of intricate linguistic maneuvering could ever come close to expressing how much this message resonates with my entire being!  Thank fuck Egbert’s here to put me out of my misery in the most excruciatingly painful way possible so I don't have to resort to eternal self-flagellation! I don't know what I'd do if he didn't have the fucking gall to pull his future post retcon bullshit—”

“His what,” Strider mutters.

“—and as if that wasn’t already the mucus on the molding grubloaf,”

“Gross.”

“—that culturally insensitive embodiment of the foulest excretions I ever had the displeasure of bearing witness to _had_ to stuff his worthless, unintelligible scribblings into a _bucket_ and throw it at my head! It certainly is considerate of him to address it with ‘ hey everybody!’ as if we’re all languishing in agony as we wait for him to lavish some crumb of communication upon us poor starving spleenfowl! Not to mention—”

This time, instead of being interrupted by another one of Dave Strider’s intellectually stimulating interjections, you are interrupted by the telltale smell of ozone and the crackling sound of yet another green sun bullshit teleportation whatever the fuck.

Sure enough, the air has once again been ripped open, and out pops a carapacian. It lands on the roof of the meteor with a dull thud, and for a moment, silence descends.

As is your duty, you immediately break it.

“Any other assholes out there ready to teleport onto our little slice of paradise? Anyone just soiling their pants for the opportunity to socialize with this tight-knit community of barely-sentient organic sacks this side of the Furthest Ring? Come on! Keep falling out of the sky! Goodness knows we have the room! Just keep it coming!”

Dave crouches down to turn the body over to reveal rivulets of red, and it takes the remains of your self-control to keep your scream internal. “Who’s this guy?”

“The visitor I mentioned earlier. He will be traveling with us too,” Lalonde explains, looking at some tiny and inconsequential flickering light. Well shit! Sure would’ve been nice to get that heads up! But as long as the residential gods are in the know, who cares about filling you pathetic mortals in!

“What is he the mayor of anyway,” Strider asks, infuriatingly calm, “it kinda looks like he just made that sash himself.”

“He’s the duly elected mayor of the fruity rumpus asshole factory, and he just cut the ribbon to a brand new museum full of priceless shut the fuck up! Between the _three parallel murder sprees_ and Egbert’s fickle ass teleporting wherever the fuck—”

“Wait, hold the fuck up— John was here? Actually, physically here in all his wide-eyed gooberish glory? John ‘shit taste’ Egbert was here, and we missed him? I can’t believe this. He’s the Sandra Bullock to our collective Daniel Day Lewis and we got to the airport five seconds too late in some bullshit twist.” Strider shoves his hands into the pockets of his undeserved god-pajamas. “You think you know a guy and then he flips everything turnways by subverting the quintessential trope. You’re supposed to be just on the edge of leaving when you catch a glimpse of your best friend’s glorious ass and yell, ‘stop the bus’ for a tearful and completely unexpected reunion that segues into some much-needed quality bro hangouts, but no, the one time his shit taste in movies would’ve had some practical application, he fucks off into the… uh…” Strider flounders for a bit, which would be entertaining if it didn’t mean that he was searching for an opportunity to spew more nonsense.

“I think what Dave was attempting to convey in between his usual enlightening turns of phrase and entirely purposeful conflation of analogies, wherein we are simultaneously aboard a plane _and_ a bus, is: ‘where the hell did John fuck off to, anyway?’” Lalonde translates.

“I am constantly delighted by the fact that I have no fucking clue what Egbert is doing at any given point in time. My lack of understanding reassures me that I will never, ever sink to his level, which is my one solace in not only this universe, but every single universe where I _guarantee_ you some version of me is shaking his fist at the sky, cursing that he ever had the misfortune of encountering humankind as a concept, much less its most shining example of pointless buffoonery.”

“So you’re saying you have no idea where he went,” Strider says, and isn’t it infuriating that his voice is just as monotonous as his messages have been.

“No, what I’m saying is it’s been a stressful few hours and it would  _really_  help! As impossible as this request may be! If you could even entertain the possibility of  _shutting the_   _fuck_   _up!_ _”_

“As vital as this conversation is in the grand scheme of things,” Lalonde interrupts, as all humans are apparently predisposed to do, “we should be leaving. It would be remiss of us to allow our guest to bleed out. Not to mention, Jack is scheduled to arrive any minute now.”

“What?” Terezi grips her cane, twisting her mouth into an unreadable expression. “You know, this was  _exactly_ what I was trying to prevent.”

“It sounds like you’re aware that this is not the ideal scenario for a final showdown. The best we can hope to do is outrun him.”

“So what,” you start, processing these recent developments a little slower than you’d like. “It’s just time to hit the fucking road? Just like that?”

“Don’t tell me that bucket left a dent in your think pan! Do you  _want_ to get us all killed? I’m sure I can speak for everyone on this rock when I say we don’t have time to indulge whatever sentimental bullshit you’re preoccupied with.”

“You can just take your fairy sparkle bullshit and fuck right off. As shocking as it may be for you to learn, Vriska,  _some_ people form important and meaningful relationships beyond slobbering over their own reflection. Just...” You can’t even muster the animosity to continue that tirade, so you don’t. You leave that thought suspended and incomplete, a bewildered noose swaying in the breeze without a body to hang, and instead, you turn towards Sollux.

“You…” You what? You curdling shitstain on the pants of our dead society? You absolute douche of nigh-impossible proportions? You sack of festering biotic rot dragged in by only the most incompetent of lusii?

“Before you even ask,  _yes_ KK, we’re still friends.”

The flash of irritation you feel is immediate and familiar. “Wow! The answer to a question that didn't even cross my think pan. Get a load of this presumptuous shitbag! Maybe finally getting rid of you will actually get my life turned around, now that I won't have the biggest douche from the vestigial detritus of Alternia for a best friend.” You might've been more convincing as a vitriolic verbal virtuoso if you didn't start clinging to him as if you’re an arboreal beast seeking foliage and he’s the last tree in existence.

You pull yourself away before you start crying (again), and you flip him off just the way your lusus taught you. It was an important and transcendental experience that shaped your early life, given his lack of opposable appendages. The significance of such a gesture is no doubt wasted on a troll with a lusus that had  _actual hands_ , but in your endless magnanimity you grant him the sight. Half-sight. Is he still blind? Fuck. “How do we make this thing go anyway. Does it have rockets or something I don’t know about?”

Lalonde smirks. “Maybe it does. I’m not sure. However, if that is the case, they won’t be needed. One good push in the right direction should be all we need.”

Aradia perks up, grinning as if that’s the best damned news she’s heard in sweeps. It’s kind of touching, since this is the greatest range of emotion you think you’ve ever seen from her, but also, it’s kind of incredibly terrifying. “I can help with that! Sollux, do you think you can lend me a hand? They’ll need the biggest push we can give them.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Scoffing, you cross your arms. “What, so just one “push” is going to last three years? Let alone outrun Jack? Bullshit.”

“Calm down KK, it should be fine. You won’t slow down.”

“How the fuck do you know that?”

“Troll Isaac Newton told him.” Lalonde has the exact type of smug self-satisfaction that communicates she’s sharing a terrible inside joke with herself that no one else is clever enough to— oh, okay, or Strider could smirk to join in on the fun. Sure, fuck trolls. Who needs interspecies cooperation when you have shitty exclusive jokes.

Whatever. You don’t have time to throw a proper tantrum because suddenly everyone’s preparing for takeoff.

After securing the details of escape, you watch as Sollux floats away with Aradia like a couple of asshole-shaped balloons and you try not to freak out at the sheer volume of blisteringly bright psiionics that explode from his every visible orifice. He’s already half dead, it's not like it can get worse. Maybe he’ll get full dead and actually be justified in jumping off the meteor. You steal a glance towards his body.

Well. He certainly isn't getting any more alive.

With one last lingering look towards the rapidly shrinking sun, you turn to address the residents of the meteor.

“Now that we’re safely hurtling away-from-slash-towards death, I think it’s time to address the bound and gagged trunkbeast in the room. What the fuck do we do with Gamzee?”

Kanaya is already taking out her lipstick before the end of your sentence, and you reach out to stay her hand.  _Hell_ no. You've seen enough of your teammates sawed in half, thanks.

“He’s dangerous,” she says, incisively curt, but she makes no attempt to pull away and do something entirely shitty, which is why she's your favorite.

“I don't see the problem with leaving him as is.” As always, Vriska enters the conversation with a constructive show of rational contribution— oh, wait! Her opinions are garbage and so is she!

“Are you suggesting we just tie him up and dump him in an empty room for the next three “years”!? Fuck no, he may have done an acrobatic pirouette bulge-deep into murdermode but we can't just—”

“Okay, I know this is an important conversation and all, but what the hell happened? Is juggalo clownface here responsible for something, or is he just into some weird kinky shit?” Strider asks, once again demonstrating his unflagging ability to involve himself in topics that are clearly labeled as ‘Keep Your Grubby Human Touch Stumps Off’, as well as his refusal to join the rest of you in Caught-Up Junction, population: literally everybody else.

“What is with you interrupting all the time, you rude shitstain? Look, this is troll business, so if there's any flesh bag out there with the misfortune of having a facial gash only capable of releasing agonizing yowls, if these miserable creatures exist merely for the sake of forcing the rest of us to suffer, they can just shove a frond nub up their seedflap and fondle themselves for three “years”, which, as demonstrated by my enclosure talons, is _still_ a ludicrous system of measurement,  _just so you know_.”

“On the contrary,” Rose manages to not interrupt because she at least can display the bare minimum of decorum, apparently, “if we’re to reside for the entirety of three “years” in the same space, I think dealing with a potential threat heavily concerns us.”

“He’s—!” Well. He is a threat. But he’s also your friend, or at least, he used to be, and now you're not that clear on how you feel about him, but you sure as fuck don't want to add another corpse to the pile. Your corpse quota is filled for today, and possibly the rest of your life. You’ll reexamine how you feel about that a perigee into Strider’s incessant yapping.

“At the very least,” Terezi swoops in to add her two caegars, “he has to be restrained and monitored until our new friend isn't on the brink of death! We wouldn't want a certain someone to finish the job and add to his collection.”

There’s a beat of silence before Strider once again proves he’s incapable of finding his own ass, much less Caught-Up Junction. “His collection of…”

“Decapitated heads.”

“Oh.”

Fucking Strider, always around to deliver dialogue of absolute necessity. Truly, you’re blessed by the grace of his presence.

“Terezi’s right,” Vriska announces. You and everyone else gape at her, as she pretends to be nonchalant and shrugs. It’s terrifying. You’re terrified. “We can just leave Gamzee tied up until we get to the dream bubble. When the carapacian is all healed up, we’ll untie him. I don’t think we’ll have to worry about him going out of control.” She smiles, wide and gleeful, and you feel a stab of sympathy for the troll that used to be one of your best friends.

“How’re we even gonna the mayor patched up? Or is that Mayor with a capital M? Is it a title or a name?” Once again, only the most essential and hard hitting commentary finds itself leaking out of Strider’s mouth.

“We should be arriving at a dream bubble soon enough with someone who can assist,” Rose says.

“Not to be the pain in everyone’s collective backside— except, wait! No! That’s my one function on this rock— but can you stop punctuating every sentence with some quip about dream bubbles without taking the time to explain what the fuck a dream bubble even is? My context consists of two trolls cheerfully telling us to fuck off because they want to prance around bubbleland for the next three years like a pair of pupating dunderfucks.”

“Dude, how out of touch are you? Even I know what dream bubbles are.” Strider, crossing his arms, seems to stare right at you with injudicious judgement. Not that you can actually tell. The look Lalonde shoots him makes you doubt this unforeseen omniscience clawing its way out of his mouth, but you’ll be damned if you’re left out of the loop.

“Well, if you can stop expelling excrement from your protein chute for long enough to impart your priceless knowledge onto this unworthy ignorant grub, I sure would appreciate it! I might even prostrate before you in gratitude, beseeching whatever intercessors there may be to allow me to best interpret whatever wisdom Dave fucking Strider deigns to spill from his pert lips—”

“Alright, that's like the third time. Why are you so obsessed with my lips? This is shaping up to be some fixation you got. Watch yourself; I let you off the hook easy but you don't want to be slipping up like that in front of Rose. And I do mean slips: you’re basically flailing ass-backwards onto Freudian slips like you’re in a goddamn banana factory. Do you guys have Freud? Troll Freud? Man, if you did his horns would probably look like-”

“What! Is! A dream bubble!”

“Hey man don't look at me, I don’t know shit about anything.”

“Then why did you open your load gaper of a mouth to ensure that I was fully aware of your inexplicable and complete knowledge of all things regarding dream bubbles? For what purpose would you spew that much bullshit, you absolute shithive of a human being, you rash on the festering posterior of the most unwashed barkbeast? It would be less painful to force a burning poker down my chitinous windhole than it is to survive a single conversation in your repulsive presence!”

Rose interrupts before you can fit in another string of well-deserved insults. You take it back, she’s just as much of an ignoble philistine as the rest of them. “You may as well save your energy— you’ll be experiencing a dream bubble firsthand soon enough.”

“Is this what life is going to be like now? One agonizing moment after another of not being able to find my own backside—”

“That sounds like a personal problem, dude.”

“Without the intercession of Rose ‘Seer of the Fucking Light’ Lalonde, whose apparent omniscience will lead us into the heart of the inscrutable void itself, and  _what the shit is happening right now_ _?”_

You fall onto your ass as the entirety of the meteor approaches a gigantic opalescent shape and slides through as easily as a sea dweller slips into water.

And speaking of sea dwellers.

“Is that Vriska I sea?”

You barely have time to adjust to the fact that you’re suddenly on Eridan’s planet, what the fuck, when a beige blur shoots towards your group, circling excitedly.

“It is! And wow, you’re all alive! Hey Spiderhag! Hey Kanaya! Crabcatch! Terezi! Humans! Gamzee?”

Everyone adjusts to Feferi’s excited chatter as if her dead body isn’t a couple floors down, but you’re still reeling (hah) from the sight of her. It’s a good thing you’re too emotionally spent to get worked up in a suitably humiliating way. Instead of focusing on how you personally failed your version of her, you focus on the bright yellow shitlord trailing behind her.

“Eridan? What the fuck are you doing with Feferi?”

“What the fuck do you mean what the fuck, why wouldn’t we be together?”

You did just literally kill her, is something you don’t say because apparently this Eridan didn’t. Probably. Instead, you retort with “I can’t understand a fucking thing that comes out of your mouth with that ridiculous accent of yours,” and you turn to Feferi. “So if you’re who we’re supposed to meet, I guess you can do weird witchy life bullshit? Because we kind of need that, apparently.”

“Oh, of course!” Feferi laughs. “Wow, it’s been a whale since anyone actually needed me to use my ‘weird witchy life bullshit’,” she says. “Not much use for it when you’re dead!”

You can’t keep yourself from flinching a bit because, yeah, she died literally hours ago from your perspective. Well,  _she_ didn’t, but. Feferi did.

Feferi looks at you, concerned. “Are you eeling all right, Karkat?”

“Yeah, yeah, you should probably be looking at the guy who got stabbed through the stomach.”

She shrugs, and floats over to the motionless carapacian. “Good timing! Any later and he’d be just as dead as I am. Life powers are a lot weaker when you don’t have one.”

“Sorry!” You blurt out, like some asshole with zero filter. “I’m sorry. I should’ve been a better leader.” And now you sound like an insincere, passive-aggressive fuck. Shit. “I mean, I guess I didn’t fail you personally, but I’m sure the screeching shithead in your universe did, and technically he’s a version of me, so.”

“Aw, does Karcrab have a soft shell after all?” She giggles over the almost-corpse of your carapacian guest, which is a little macabre, but also just what you’d expect. Her eyes dart back down to the body, and she kneels next to him.

“It’s reely not your fault,” she says. Her hands start to glow. “Or at least, not completely. In fact, if you see the Karkat from my session as a different troll entirely, then you have nothing to do with it at all.”

“Do you see it like that?” You ask.

She grins, and her empty eyes make the expression incredibly unsettling. “Nope. But that shouldn’t stop you from taking some comfort from the idea.”

She’s pressing her hands to the carapacian’s stomach when she speaks again. “I’ve learnt a lot. Being alive, getting to godtier, and dying? I’ve crested every wave as it came, and one by one they've taught me something that I think you reely need to learn, Karcrab.”

“And what’s that? What could possibly be so achingly essential that you had to fucking die to learn it?”

“I’m not responsible for everyone else, and you aren’t either.” She sits back, apparently admiring her handiwork, before turning back to you. “Sometimes you have to let things run their course.”

 

 

* * *

 

Now that there’s no immediate threat of death and-slash-or loss, you finally have the time to process the last few hours. Your first instinct is to seek out Terezi— it feels a bit too late for tearful dramatic speeches about how glad you are she’s alive, but you still want to talk to her. You at least want her to know you're glad she’s alive beyond the one sentence of surprise-slash-relief you managed to expunge from your incompetent chute.

But it’s hard. It’s hard because suddenly she’s joined to Vriska’s hip. And the second she peels herself away, right when you think you might have a chance to talk to her, she’s off with Strider, working on some asinine project.

Fuck. Seven billion people on that primitive, backwater planet and the machinations of paradox space grant you the absolute privilege to have him in not only your session, but on your meteoric confinement. You didn’t even get the chance to swap him out for any of the humans you've actually reached some understanding, some approximation of friendship. Instead you get the shithead that single-handedly usurped Sollux as biggest douche in existence, which is! No small feat!

It’s like Strider’s actively scoping out exactly when and where he can be the biggest tool imaginable, and by golly is he succeeding! Even when he’s not doing anything! Just! What’s with the fucking shades! Oh, look at me, concealing my globular organs like they’re the tyrian tiara of the empress herself! Newsflash, asshole: nobody cares! There will be no subterfuge, no intricately planned heist to steal a sight of those ocular cavities. He just _happens_ to run into quite possibly the only troll who’d bother to give him the time of night and you guess that’s enough to spike up his douche-o-meter to cataclysmic levels.

It's not like it even matters anyway, since he’s already decked out in his bright red god pajamas. He’s like a beacon of douchebaggery, shining out into the sky to illuminate a path by which the Imperial Starship Asshole can guide itself into port, which, at least, makes him easy to avoid.

The only problem is that by extension you’re avoiding Terezi, too.

You think about hanging out with Kanaya, but she seems… _preoccupied_ with touring Rose around the meteor _,_ and god if that doesn’t make your stomach churn in anticipation of what’s to come.

You are, for all intents and purposes, a fucking loser all by yourself.

It’s going to be a long three years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [5:12:01 PM] Stella: this is honestly so fun  
> [5:12:09 PM] Air: it really is  
> [5:12:38 PM] Stella: we're like doing the inverse & verbal version of penis oujia  
> [5:14:08 PM] Air: you can’t tell who did what words and what lines in karkat ouija


	2. Echoes of an Uncertain Past (Future? Whatever.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which It is Made Readily Apparent That Putting Vriska and Karkat in the Same Room has a Similar Result to Setting Fire to a Hydrogen Balloon, Dream Bubbles are Explored, and Karkat Finds Himself Better Acquainted with Lava Than He Would Like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to personally state how terrified and impressed I am that we wrote this chapter and posted it within the space of a day.  
> \- Air
> 
> I'd like to personally submit this explanation:  
> [1:31:47 AM] Stella: writerly compatibility  
> [1:31:58 AM] Air: it’s like piloting a jaeger  
> [1:32:03 AM] Air: but the jaeger is made of words  
> [1:32:10 AM] Stella: I'm glad we're drift compatible  
> -Stella

It’s barely over a day into your voyage and you’re already entertaining the idea of bashing your cranial plate against a wall. Repeatedly. You can’t even languish in the solitude of your own abhorrent company for a fucking day to recuperate from the longest solar rotation of your young life because _spidertroll_. Of course she wouldn’t be considerate enough to let anyone rest before diving right the fuck into whatever would be most inconvenient and unpleasant for everyone involved, as is her one purpose in life.

Vriska demands to hold a meeting for the purposes of _scheduling_ regular meetings— as if that isn’t the most redundant fucking thing you’ve heard in sweeps— as well as to hash out plans regarding your arrival into the new session _even though_ it’s barely been long enough for a hypothetical planet to complete an orbit around its nonexistent sun (not that you would know, since time is essentially meaningless). And if that’s not already enough recrementitious manure piled onto the already overflowing nutrition plateau, it’s also apparently time to catch everyone up to speed with what the fuck just happened.

You have to sit through the repetitious droning of the same five voices as everyone restates and reframes the same series of facts. They do whatever it takes in order to expedite the immigration process to Caught-Up Junction, as well as to drive you into the deepest, most fetid pits of boredom-induced despair.  

Fortunately, the group manages to blunder their way into a topic you actually give a semblance of a fuck about. Unfortunately, Strider’s the one to bring it up.

He raises a prong in the air as if it’s an appendage worth gratuitous applause, and you’re about to tell him where he can shove it when Rose rolls her glance nuggets and points at him.

“Dave, you don’t have to raise your hand when you have a question. Any scholarly institution has been demolished, and we are safe from the constraints of academia.” She snorts. “Don’t be too alarmed, but you have the opportunity to discard several childish pretences whenever you choose.”

“I am shocked and offended that you’d even suggest I would ever drop any single childish pretence in my extensive repertoire. I am a goddamn baby swaddled in layer upon layer of pretence, and the day I burst out of that cozy fucking cocoon like the most apocryphal butterfly the universe has ever seen will be the day that I die. Permanently this time. It will be a sacrifice for the greater good.”

“Strider, will you just ask your question already?” Vriska asks, pinching the divot of her cartilaginous nub between her touch stubs. At least his babbling is good for something.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m getting to it.” Strider shakes his head. “I thought you,” he points to Terezi, “were going to kill spidertroll. Instead, we get to the meteor and she’s live and kicking, not to mention laughing at Karkat with the best of ‘em, lest we forget the time John chucked-”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, back the fuck up,” you say, giving the recidivous douche a taste of his own medicine. “I know Egbert, for some reason beyond the understanding of us lowly mortals, pulled some “retcon” shenanigans that involved launching Serket up an aerial spiral right out of consciousness and into snoozeville, but I’ve never heard anything about killing her.”

In an uncharacteristic display of nonchalance, the troll in question shrugs. You’re beginning to hate it when she does that; it’s the second time in as many days, and it’s freaking you out. “Apparently I got killed in the alpha timeline. Which, surprise! Sure did fuck you all over, so great job on that. Even when my death is predestined by Paradox Space, you bozos still can’t do anything without me.”

What.

“What,” you say out loud for good measure.

Terezi sighs.“I don’t know too many of the details, but apparently my future self teamed up with John’s future self to change the alpha timeline. On my instruction, he’s been making subtle changes throughout our session— changes specifically made to save Vriska’s life.” She takes out her scratched caegar, flipping it idly. “Before John came in and punched Vriska, there were two potential futures: Vriska lived, and everyone on the meteor died. Or, Vriska died, and everyone on the meteor lived. For us to be in the alpha timeline, Vriska had to die. But with John’s interference, Vriska’s death wasn’t needed to avoid the doomed timeline— she was incapacitated up until the point where any action she took would’ve led us to our deaths. If John hadn’t knocked her out, those would’ve been the only two options for her; only death could stand between Vriska and her schemes.”

“You know me so well! But yeah. My bad. And hey! I’m apparently worth rewriting the alpha fucking timeline for, so a preemptive ‘you’re welcome’ for the fact that I’m here to save you losers from however you messed up. Some appreciation would be nice.”

“Hopefully it is not your humility we will need,” Kanaya says, which is why she’s your favorite.

“Can it.”

Kanaya raises her arms in mock surrender, and you take this lull in fatuous babble to raise your own questions.

“Okay, so apparently Paradox Space has shit taste, glad that’s clarified. But if that’s the case, what’s the point of the other changes Egbert’s apparently made? Is making? Why didn’t future you just tell him to pop Serket right in her gaping maw and leave it at that? Or, going in the opposite direction, why didn’t future you try to change the murder meteor corpse bonanza?”

“That’s what I’m still trying to figure out!” Terezi scowls, slamming her coin onto the table. It comes up heads. “Mind powers are a tricky business, Karkat!”

“At the very least, Vriska is an intimidating asset,” Rose murmurs to herself. “Having another godtier on the team is a significant weight on our side of the figurative scale, and from what I’ve heard of her capacity for manipulation, those powers could come in handy. I’m hesitant to endorse such abilities, seeing as she might perceive this as encouragement to use them on us for her own machinations, but otherwise…”

“We had a truce about her not pulling any of that shit during our session— if her ego isn’t too bloated by delusions of grandeur now that she’s _apparently_ inexpendable, I’m sure she can continue to follow it.”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it. Pipe down, grumps. Besides, I can’t really control humans.” Her face twists in disdain, which is great (suck it, Serket), before turning towards you, which is not (goddamn it, Serket). You can instantly feel your hackles getting raised.

“It really is too bad I’m the only one that gets a break from all this predestination bullshit,” she says, drawling out the ‘all’ in an entirely obnoxious fashion. You know with absolute certainty that if this was in a text-based medium, she’d meticulously type eight ‘l’s like the enormous tool she is. Luckily, you’re spared that particular linguistic irritant. “If it’s any consolation, this was probably the best way for half our friends to be slaughtered. Pretty painless, honestly, compared to the majority of the dream bubble population out there.”

“In what world would that be a fucking consolation? Oh! Let me guess! Is it one where I have the strikingly compassionate disposition of Vriska fucking Serket?” You stand up, fists clenched, the pounding of your blood pusher ringing in your aural cavities. “Newsflash! Our friends are still dead, you’re still a murderous asshole, and those facts bear all of the comfort of a rabid lusus with a taste for troll flesh!” You feel your face contort into a snarl. “Oh, wait! That’s the only example you ever had! No wonder you’re shit at it! If I had any influence on whatever unfathomable powers control this “predestination bullshit,” I’d swap you with any, and I mean _any_ of the five-and-a-half casualties we've suffered!”

“Karkat!” Terezi exclaims, and you know that if, at this very moment, you were on a beach, if there was a line drawn in the sand before you, you had basically just done the equivalent of a flawless fucking tuck-and-roll right off asshole coast.

You think for only a moment about taking it back, but when you look up, Vriska’s grinning. “Go on, Karkat, tell us how you really feel,” she goads.

“Fuck this,” you say. “Fuck this, and fuck you.” You march away, pretending not to feel the stares boring into your back.

 

* * *

 

The bodies are gone.

Honestly, it’s kind of a relief. That’s one less incommodious responsibility you have to deal with. Then again, who knows! It certainly would be something to do now that all your friends have fucked off. Maybe this can be the next big mystery: which sick fuck is hoarding corpses and what could they possibly be doing with them!

This is rapidly becoming too disturbing to contemplate. You resolve to allow that particular rail transport of thought jump the tracks into a calamitous wreckage, never to be operated again.

Sollux’s absence still stings, especially since he was the one out of your two best friends who didn’t end up mentally terrorizing you in an emotionally traumatic fashion, but honestly, you get it. You still feel the burning desire to do something important and meaningful, but you wouldn’t be opposed to a break, an actual break without every conceivable repercussion of your actions hanging over your head like the blade of a guillotine.

You’d try to break up the monotony by spending time with the few friends you have left, but they’ve made it pretty fucking clear that they need some distance. Kanaya’s so painfully obvious about being enamoured that it’s embarrassing to witness, but you decide to be considerate and not intrude in the development of her flushed leanings. She probably needs some space (ha) to indulge the novelty of admiring an alien lifeform in the flesh, especially one long admired from the other side of a screen. As for Terezi…

Despite what everyone seems to think, you can take a hint. For some reason, she doesn't want to talk to you. Well, looking back, you can see several good reasons, but: why _now_? Sure, you’ve done plenty to warrant this frigid scapular protrusion (you guess), but in hindsight, it seems weirdly. Sudden. Like one second she’s exasperated, yet willing to put up with your bullshit, and the next she can’t stand being in the same room as you. Besides, every time you try to talk to her, you’re made painfully aware that interacting with Terezi is a “free Vriska included!” package deal. And you don’t have the mental capacity to deal with Vriska right now. Which, of course, Terezi knows.

And then there’s...

You’re not going to lie to yourself. Any more than you already do, that is. When you’re draped over a makeshift pile, trying not to sleep because dream bubbles are weird as shit and horrorterrors are worse, you almost hit the edge of desperation. You want to talk to someone. You want to talk to Gamzee. But then you remember the bodies, and _they_ were your friends too. Even Equius, in some disgustingly unfortunate and roundabout way. They were _Gamzee’s_ friends, and he took them down without hesitation, and…

There’s some part of you that can’t accept it. You got to the roof and Gamzee was already tied like an oinkbeast fit for slaughter. He didn’t look like a threat, but you know he was— is— and it’s weird to come to the precipice of a disaster, prepare yourself for an elegant somersault off its edge, but whoops! Turns out the cliff was actually an insignificant pimple on some asshole’s lawnring and you just end up tripping over it like an uncoordinated shitheel, except, more corpses. There’s always more fucking corpses.

Most of your days are spent in idle exploration, feeling sorry for yourself and hating the fact that you do.

 

* * *

 

There is, of course, a limit to how long you can stay awake. As the first perigee of your long journey crawls to a slow start, you adjust to the dream bubbles. It’s more out of necessity than any particular desire to come face-to-face with your mistakes, whether that you is ‘you’ or if it’s a different ‘you’ entirely.

Seeing the dead trolls of other sessions is. Yeah, it’s something you’re not going to get used to. It’s weird. It’s depressing. It’s kind of nice. It’s kind of not. They’re your friends, but they aren’t _your_ friends— apologizing doesn’t offer any sort of closure when you’re making amends with the same-yet-wrong person, and in the same vein, screaming obscenities doesn’t offer any sort of catharsis when you’re verbally eviscerating the same-yet-wrong person.

It’s a shame because you never did get to give your Eridan a piece of your fucking mind. At least, your then-current Eridan. You hope one day you run into the tool. It gives you something to look forward to.

You don’t run into yourself very often, because you avoid yourself like the plague. And if you know yourself, which you do since you _are_ yourself, you’re pretty sure you’re avoiding yourself too. Shit, that’s confusing. Basically, there’s simultaneous avoidance going on and it’s great.

That changes one day (night? whatever) when you wake up, only to find yourself not in your land (thank fuck), but the next worst thing— Dave’s land (fuck). And, because your life is a never ending carousel of bullshit, you wake up next to yourself.

“Well fuck,” you say, for lack of anything better. There’s a beat of silence as you both mutually process your appearance. You both seem to be waiting for you to skedaddle, but if there’s anything you know about yourself, it’s that you’re a stubborn braybeast.

It appears the other you knows this as well, because you say to yourself, “I’m waiting for someone, so if you want to avoid this laborious, inevitably asinine conversation, you’re gonna have to be the one to fuck off.”

Well, now you’re definitely not going to move. You sigh, settling down on the platform next to yourself. After an appropriate length of awkward silence, you bite the bullet. “So. How did you die? Unless there’s some ridiculous bubble-specific etiquette, according to which I just made a grievous ass of myself by asking the most insensitive question possible, in which case: how the fuck did you die, you pathetic asshole?”

“Gamzee.”

“Fucking Gamzee.”

The both of you take a moment to reflect on the lamentable inevitability of everyone’s favorite murderclown meltdown.

“I take it Alpha Gamzee flipped his shit?”

“Did he ever.” You roll your gander bulbs skyward, as if beseeching the horrorterrors to take pity on you and end your suffering. If the only cure for that is to be wiped from existence, so be it. “Looks like yours charged straight into corpsetown a lot earlier though.”

You remember that shirt he has. Somewhere in the middle of the session, Kanaya took it upon herself to expand the wardrobe of her fashionably incompetent group of assholes. You wore it for a while to satisfy her before promptly defaulting to your sweater. Not that you didn’t appreciate the gesture, it was just uncomfortable to be dressed in such light wardrobe (comparatively speaking— the sleeves barely reached your synovial hinge). You hope she was happy in this session. At least, as happy as someone could be in a doomed session.

Before you could start gossiping with yourself like a couple of cluckbeasts, you— the other you— perks up.

“Took you long enough. What, did you fall ass-backwards into a load gaper?”

“Chill crabcakes.” Oh no. “I was just scoping out the new neighbors. Apparently we’re drifting towards some sprinkle teatime asshole jam, so that’ll be fun.” You’ve got to be kidding. “Didn’t recognize it myself, so it must be one of yours.” Dave fucking Strider settles next to you (not you, the other you) and raises his prong in a lazy salute. “Yo Karkat.”

“What,” you say, and after a pause significant enough to convey your disbelief, “the fuck.”

“Uh, this,” the other you takes an exaggerated pause, “the fuck? Was that some feeble grasp for an intelligible response? Because I don’t know how aware you are of social paradigms, but for that, you need a coherent question if you want to avoid some endless antiphonal echo chamber. You nincompoop.”

“Why in the name of every eldritch abomination occupying the Furthest Ring are you hanging out with Strider, of all people?” You lurch to your feet to better communicate how righteous your indignation is. “Out of every dead, prancing embodiment of failure you had to choose from, why did you decide to waste even a second of your afterlife with _him_? ”

“‘Strider’?” Dave laughs. “I didn’t think there could be anyone more uptight than you, and I guess I was right. So if past Karkat was ‘an endless siphon for blundering regret and poor life choices’  and future Karkat was  ‘an asshole smug enough to power the green sun by his ego alone,’  what does that make current-slash-Alpha Karkat?”

“A nookchafed petulant wiggler without a shred of self-awareness. Also, you're not shouting nearly enough to convey the absolute disdain I have for every conceivable version of me that exists.”

You flip yourself off.

“Don't be so hard on yourself, man. You're gonna make you cry, and then where would we be? Drowning in translucent pastel-pink tears like the cover art of some 90’s alt band.”

“Listen, asshole, I’d like to see you put up with me.”

There’s a moment where all three of you share a stomach-churning second of shared embarrassment at the lack of forethought put into that statement. You need some time to process that such an improvident statement was actually made and was, in fact, expelled out of your own mouth. Your own, alternate mouth, anyway.

This is why you avoid other Karkats. Everything just gets progressively more confusing and embarrassing, like a never ending sea of bad decisions from which the water of regret flows. Still, you’d prefer feasting your eyes on an entire army of your doomed selves than bearing witness to The Bi-Sweep Vantas-Strider Canoodle Fest of Bubbletown.

“As agonizing as it is to spend more than five seconds caressing my own face with my gander bulbs, it causes me exponentially more visceral, unrelievable torment to endure the presence of Strider for longer than two seconds, so if you could explain how you’re surviving such concentrated amounts of ‘ironic’ bullshit and pointless babbling—”

“You’re one to talk, crabpuff.”

“If you compare me to one of your human parodies of esculent nutritional substances again, I will gleefully immolate myself in full view of the both of you.”

The other you lets out a huff of irritation. “Does a healthy relationship with mutual reciprocation really disgust you that much?” His face wrinkles up, as if he’s only now noticed the sulfur that makes the entire dream bubble smell like the inside of a rotten egg. “Well, given our track record, I guess I’m not surprised.”

“I’d say you don’t know what I have to put up with, but I don’t want to repeat your mistakes and make us both even more ashamed of our continued existence.”

“Oh yeah, Alpha Dave,” Strider says, as if you were talking to him. “How is that guy. How is that me. How is that me guy.”

“An absolute bulgelicking shithead with the sensitivity of an imperial drone.”

Strider nods, stoic in the face of your verbal assault on his character. “Sounds about right.”

You turn to your other self. “I don’t understand how you— I— _you_ can tolerate this bullshit.”

He (you) shrugs in a way he (you) knows you (he) would find infuriating, and something occurs to you.

“Are you guys _pale_?” You inject this question with enough scandalized indignation to convey just how repulsive you find the very insinuation. “Is that it? Have you really gotten desperate enough for any degree of non-hostile interaction that Strider, of all people, fills that criteria?”

You watch yourself cradle your face in your hands. “I forgot how infuriatingly hung up on compulsively categorizing every nuance of interpersonal interaction I was. If you want to call it that, sure! Why the fuck not.”

Have you always been this obnoxiously cagey with yourself? Thinking back on it, yes. You have. Maybe doomed Dave will tell you what going on.

As if he knows what you’re thinking, he shakes his head. "Hey man, I don't know shit about romance foursquare. Wait, was that i-l or l-e?”

“P-A-L-E, you dunderfuck.”

“Look, Karkat,” you say to yourself. He says to himself. He says to yourself. “I know you’re a stubborn wiggler with a head that _might as well_ be filled with nothing but gastronomic flatulence—”

“Did you just call yourself a farthead?”

“Shut up, Dave— but clean out your aural sponge and listen up for once.” You (he) leans in, clasping your (his) prongs together as if you’re (he’s) about to impart some gratingly obvious wisdom in the most condescending way possible— oh, wait! That’s exactly what he’s doing! Because every version of you is an obnoxious fuck!

“There are literally infinite versions of me with infinite experiences floating around these dream bubbles, and fuck if that’s not an annoying fact of un-life, so there are endless possibilities regarding which relationships thrive and which ones, for lack of a better term, die a brutal death. You can’t ignore this. I know for a fact one of me is dating one of Nepeta."

"Hell, one of you is probably getting freaky with that weird horse dude,” Strider interjects.

“No,” you and the other Karkat say in unison. Strider looks way too amused, so you flip him off.

“Look," you say, "I can accept that the multitudinous possibilities are impossible to fathom. But. There’s no way that any iteration of me in paradox space would ever date _Equius_ in _any fucking quadrant._ I would rather subject myself to ten million sweeps of self-flagellation, with a toxic length of hide from Vriska’s deceased lusus, than to an eternity of,” you puff out your chest, scrunching up your face into an approximation of his grimace,  "I am aware that your 100d language is typical of such a low caste, much more considering your status as a mootant, but you could at the very least incorporate some highb100d vernacular into your everyday vocabudairy. Think of how much more enriched your life would be if you spent every waking moment talking about “toilets” or “refrigerators” or even “bicycles”.  I refuse to take no for an answer, as the hemospectrum is the pillar of society on which I constantly rub my sweat-covered shame globes. Oh shoot, it 100ks like my STRONG, disgusting diaphoros glands have once again left me drowning in perspiration, and there is not a towel in sight. Heck.”

Strider lets out a scandalized gasp. “Now that’s going too far. I can’t exist in a universe where any Karkat says ‘heck’. Goodbye, cruel dream bubble. I am no longer fit for this world.” He pretends to expire dramatically, which you might gain some enjoyment from if he hadn’t flopped directly onto your doomed self’s lap, and if that you didn’t just roll your gander bulbs and start _playing with Strider’s hair what the fuck._

You slam your prongs over your ocular cavities hard enough to actually hurt a little bit. “Can you _not_? Can you contain yourselves for _half_ of a single blistering second, so that I don’t have to subject myself to witnessing this travesty?”

Strider sighs, as if he’s the one suffering here. “Look, I get that right now you and Alpha Dave have an entirely different relationship, but this is kind of getting kinda old. And by ‘kinda old’ I mean there is a distinct chance of abnormally expedited aging. It’s like if a baby spent two minutes rolling around in its shit-covered diaper before launching itself straight into grad school. A second later, junior’s got a steady job. He’s paying off his mortgage. That’s not normal. Trust me, I’m the time guy.”

“Excuse me if I find myself perturbed by your blatantly public displays of affection.”

“When you put it that way, I guess I can see your point! How will we go on, knowing that the tamest expression of affection is going to make Alpha Karkat miserable? Oh, I know!” The other you grabs Strider’s hand and squeezes it in the most blatant, unnecessarily over the top fashion possible. "Dave Strider, I value and cherish our time together!” You pretend to fucking swoon just to piss yourself off.

“Shit bro, your sincere affection is noted. We should engage in a tender embrace and caress each other’s faces, taking care to draw it out as slowly and solicitously as we can.”

“Or! You could find some modicum of consideration in your microscopic blood pushers and _not_ do that!”

Strider huffs out a sigh. “You don’t have to hang around here, you know.”

And isn’t that just a kick in the ass. Even the two biggest assholes in all of paradox space don’t want you hanging around. To be fair, you don’t want to be here either. Still, it’s… it’s a shitty epiphany to have.

You tune back into the conversation just in time to hear the other you conclude some pretentious bullshit about the meaning of life and your inability to maintain interpersonal connections or something.

“If you’re anything like me, which you are, you’re probably wallowing in some martyristic fantasy and avoiding everyone around you. Giving people space doesn’t mean completely isolating yourself, which, judging by the fact that you’re still hanging around here when you could fuck off at any time, you’re doing a fantastic job of.”

“Fuck you. You have no idea what the alpha timeline is like. I refuse to be the insufferable, shit-encrusted prong that rocks the human-cradle and dig my heels into the fresh dirt of None of My Fucking Business.”

Apparently that's a proclamation amusing enough to tease a chuckle from Strider’s unfortunate noise hole. “Uh, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but that’s kind of your MO. You charged in here and started doing it thirteen minutes ago. Or, five and a half hours from your conked out body’s perspective, I guess, since you’re asleep and time’s fucking weird.” He looks at you and lets out another laugh for no good reason. "Really, really weird."

You glare at the other you. “You’re human-dating a clock shaped like a feculent pile of barkbeast residue.”

“And you’re hanging around feeling sorry for yourself instead of forming any meaningful relationships, so what the fuck ever. Enjoy your self-imposed exile.” The other you tries to look down at you despite the fact that you’re looming over you and your lap full of Strider. “I guess _one_ of us has to be the mature, responsible Karkat who imparts life-changing wisdom, only to be completely ignored by the inferior, unreliable Karkat.”

“I’d listen to Karkat, Karkat. Karkat knows his stuff.” Strider’s one purpose in life is to spite you. In fact, you understand everything now! It’s no wonder he gets along with the alternate dead you, since— as it turns out— that’s your purpose as well! You end up proving your point with the next statement that pours out of your mouth like a stream of viscous bile.

“Maybe I should go into excruciating detail about how I met Dave! It has all the essential components of your standard rom-com, exactly the type of shit you’d devour with enough unflagging avarice to make _Vriska_ look altruistic. I know, because I’m you.” You clear your throat. “It all started—”

“Alright, that's it.”

You turn around, taking the one step necessary to fall off the platform into lava and the waking world.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1:51:57 AM] Air: OKAY NOW I KNOW WHY YOU WERE FOCUSSING ON THE BOTTOM HALF  
> [1:52:08 AM] Air: YOU WANTED TO FLESH OUT AWKWARD DREAMBUBBLE HANGOUTS  
> [1:52:11 AM] Air: I’M LAUGHING  
> [1:52:14 AM] Stella: I REALLY DID  
> [1:52:35 AM] Stella: I AM A PERSON OF VERY EASILY DISCERNABLE INTERESTS  
> [1:52:37 AM] Air: me: gotta be chronological about this  
> [1:52:56 AM] Air: stella: AWKWARD CONVERSATION AND GAY FORESHADOWING TIME  
> [1:53:24 AM] Stella: with our powers combined  
> [2:08:40 AM] Air: What The fuck it’s almost 3K


	3. Intermediary Municipality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Cantown is the Setting for Both an Inspiring Lifetime Movie and a Failed Godzilla Remake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> most of Karkat's ramble was handled by me, stella, and most of Dave's ramble was handled by air, air. we're finally reaching some degree of separation in the tangle that is our collaborative masterpiece. amazing.

For the better part of the perigee, you can’t help but check in with cantown. At first you’d only have to glance in to see Terezi's absence, which was always suspiciously coordinated with your arrival. It’s not like she isn’t a major part of the creative direction— you see more and more evidence of her art no matter when you go, so presumably she’s there a lot. Just not when you are.

It started out simply enough; just a few cans stacked around a small area of an otherwise empty room, accompanied by whatever chalk scrawlings Terezi had seen (sniffed?) fit to add. Soon enough, however, finding anyone in the room becomes a job too complex for a quick glance. Cantown seems to descend into an intricate sprawling mess in the space between the open and close of the door that leads to it. If you didn’t know better, you’d think it was organic; it expands at an exponential rate able to rival any carcinogenic growth. You actually have to wade through towering stacks of haphazard cans, risking blunt injury at the merciless hands of a municipal building made of tin.

Your line of site is constantly interrupted by a maze of empty food receptacles, and every time you venture into the bustling infrastructure of inner-city cantown, you run the risk of coming face to face with someone you’d rather not see before determining the lack of someone you’d really like to talk to. You’ve been fortunate so far, able to get in and out with minimal fuss, but if there’s one thing you don’t have for long, it’s luck. Right now, for instance, as you turn to leave you (almost literally) run into Strider carrying an armful of assorted crafting materials. You have to work not to fall over into a can structure and send the entire town into a ruinous monument of your poor decisions. That slot’s already taken by an entire universe, thanks.

“‘Sup Karkat,” Strider says, composed as ever. It’s like he doesn’t even notice the burning (platonic) animosity he solicits. “Welcome to Cantown.”

“You can take your welcome and shove it back down your protein chute— I’ve got places to be that are just adjacent to anywhere but here.”

“Dude, you realize if you’re going to a place that’s _not_ anywhere but here, that leaves ‘here’ as the only option, right?” Strider shakes his head. “You’re so far off your game that game night’s been cancelled. Pack monopoly back in its box, grandma, we’re not even choosing a banker tonight.”

“Fuck off, you prattling sack of hoofbeast shit.”

“Yeah, still not feeling it. Where has the passion gone?” There’s an uncomfortable beat of silence. “Fuck, I forgot about your troll hate-romance whatever thing. Yeah. No, what I meant is you look like shit. In a totally platonic, casual kind of observation way. Are you still looking for Terezi? You gotta move on, man. It’s not healthy.”

“Not that it’s any of your business who I may or may not be looking for, but what the fuck do you mean by that?”

“Look, I’m not here to get involved in whatever’s going on but you’re trailing around two steps behind her like some lovesick puppy. Hatesick? You gotta get over her. It’s like one of those Lifetime movies with the missed connections; you start out huddled in a ball under the biggest, fluffiest duvet money can buy, tissues meticulously scattered to set the scene, when your best friend, Meg, calls—”

“Who the fresh fuck is Meg?”

“Don’t interrupt when Meg is teaching you important life lessons about self-care and love. Anyway, your best friend alerts you to the existence of independence and freedom, and in your haste to jump out of— fuck, you don’t have beds. What do you sleep in? Piles?”

“Strider, I could not give less of a fuck about explaining—”

“Eh, we’ll chalk it up to artistic liberties. The important thing is you fall flat on your face to symbolize the first hurdle in becoming your own person: your resignation to a life without romance, and the obsession with finding it.”

“Romance?” And here, you can’t stop the sharp bark of laughter that escapes. “You think this is about _romance_!? I can barely cobble together a parody of a social life, let alone preoccupy myself with the farcical possibility of romance! I just want to know what I did to pilot the vehicle of our friendship into what’s apparently an unsalvageable wreckage! Goodness knows there are _plenty_ of options to choose from! Was it my absolute failure as a leader? The fact that I’m responsible for just about half the team getting killed? Or just the searing, agonizingly obvious conclusion that I’m just _that_ _much_ of an intolerable affliction to anyone with the mental capacity for sentient thought?”

You can’t be sure with his incessantly aggravating shades— which, why is he wearing them indoors on a barely lit wasteland where the closest thing to natural lighting emits from the skin of a rainbow drinker— but you think he’s staring at you. And while that would usually be enough to close the sluice of your unending waterfall of jabberjack-off for a split second— if only to ensure that you could expedite the uncomfortable procedure of enduring his unholy and self-righteous judgment— for some reason, the opposite happens. Apparently, it’s time to shove your frond pod so far down your esophageal tube that it comes out the other end.

“Maybe Terezi's coming upon the inevitable realization that I don’t fit into the immutable— except wait, now it’s as elastic as _your_ _range_ _of_ _emotion—_  alpha fucking timeline! Maybe she’s trying to phase me out through sheer determination! Karkat? What the fuck is a Karkat?” You find yourself laughing again, because really, you’re just having that much of a jolly fucking time. “After all, if this is the timeline necessary for the cumulative success of not one, but _three_ sessions _apparently_ , why the fuck am _I_ still alive! What could Paradox Space want with such a colossal fuckup! Swap me out with any of the dead trolls and at least you’ve got someone who can fight! Narrow the pool by half and you’ve got that _plus_ the added bonus of someone with a social competency developed beyond that of a lolling barkbeast hopped up on high fructose grubsauce! Which, for those ignorant of basic fucking knowledge about Alternian zoology, is poisonous to barkbeasts! The barkbeast is now dead! Maybe that’s what the higher powers have in store for me!”

There isn't enough room in the makeshift corridor-cum-city street to pace, and you’re practically vibrating in your dermal confinement. “It’s all coming together! There just hasn’t been the opportunity for an appropriately embarrassing and meaningless death fit to end my wretched existence! No, it has to be _grandiose_ in how the last chapter of my pathetic life comes to the most anti-climactic and easily prevented close. Maybe I’ll fall down some stairs! Maybe I’ll slip in the ablution tap and tumble frond-over-horns right into the faucet! Maybe I’ll choke on some grubloaf and suffocate!”

You’ve done a flawless pirouette from the rational region right into hysteria central, and the part of you that isn’t freaking the fuck out is practically begging you to calm down before you embarrass yourself any further, but whoops! You’re a little preoccupied by freaking the fuck out! You’re building your very own respiteblock firmly in the freakout zone with all the finesse of a newly-hatched grub, sans the carpenter droids.

Already, everything starts to feel too intense— your skin feels too thin, and even the draft from the vent feels wrong against your flesh. You’re uncomfortably aware of the blood pulsing through your veins, strange in its flux, as if it’s preparing to seep through in a mass exodus of exsanguination, and each breath you take feels out of sync, like you’re so incompetent you can’t even figure out the timing necessary for your chitinous windhole to function properly, and it doesn’t help that your useless fucking pump biscuit is going overdrive, the sound of it deafening—

Something drapes over you and you scramble for a bit, instinctively wrapping yourself into a cocoon. There’s a brief sense of immediate relief that comes from being obscured from view, as if the physical weight of someone else’s gaze no longer exists, and though you’re aware of that stunning display of abso-fucking-lutely useless object impermanence, you embrace it with the desperation of a drowning land dweller. You pull fabric taut so it completely covers your face in uniform pressure, grounding yourself with the texture of fine-woven thread. Fuck, that’s soft.

You somehow coast through one terrible, eternal minute of hyperventilation before realizing you’ve buried yourself in Strider’s cape. Your initial instinct is to fling it off of you, and maybe shriek expletives at Strider for the next perigee or so, but. You can’t bring yourself to abandon your sanctuary just yet. And by the blessed grace of some higher being, Strider doesn’t say a word, so you’re content to take full advantage of his sudden munificence. You give yourself a solid ten minutes before you navigate out of the tangled maze of fabric. The mayor, who apparently wandered over during your screeching shitfest of a tantrum, is thankfully the one who notices your emergence. The second he sees your face, he walks over to pat it lightly.

You’re admittedly bemused by the gesture from a carapacian that likely has no knowledge of its significance, but still, it’s… comforting. For lack of an alternative response, you duck your head in gratitude.

Apparently satisfied, he hands you some cotton balls, gesturing to the pack of crudely made woolbeasts currently sectioned off. You wordlessly start pulling the fibrous mounds apart, finding comfort in the repetitive movement.

“Didn’t realize how hard shit was hitting you. Uh. Sorry. My bad.”

You freeze for a second, glancing at Strider out of the corner of your eyes. It takes you a few moments to analyze what he’s said, how he’s said it, and whether or not his body language is projecting some sort of ironic insincerity, but in the end you decide that even he wouldn’t go through the motions of getting you to chill the fuck out just to rile you back up again.

Still, you don’t really have anything to say to that. You’re not sure it even requires a response. So you don’t say anything.

Strider, of course, interprets this as an invitation to open the floodgates, behind which he was apparently storing up the ten minutes of unused babble you were spared from while wrapped in the cape.

“Like, I guess I thought you were dicking around the bottom of the cliff of emotional stability, being your typical angry mcshouty old man archetype, yelling at the clouds for being too fluffy and not doing a proper job of hiding your delicate skin from the sun, but really you were pacing back and forth at the top while it’s literally crumbling under you. I mean, I don’t really talk to you that much, so I couldn’t really get a sense for where you were elevation-wise, but I still feel like a major douche about it.” Strider takes a moment to breathe. It gives you less than a second to process the tender embrace of silence before he cruelly rips it from your piteous arms.

“It’s like I’m the cliff inspector because I’m familiar with it, you know? Wise to its secrets. They call me when Lassie can’t find the kids in the cave, or whatever. Me and the cliff, we get each other. But I’m so busy rubbing my hands on the rocks and getting some sweet alone time with the cliff that I don’t notice that someone’s pacing across a part of it that just so happens to have less structural integrity than anyone thought. Or, let’s say I do notice, but I think the cliff is just great, and the elevation’s whatever, and everything’s fine until I see a Karkat flailing off the top, doing his goddamn best not to end up a smear on the ground, and shit maybe if I was paying the slightest bit of attention I could’ve been up there pulling you to safety but instead I’m the asshole that pushes you off, then stomps on the tenuous grip you have on the edge. The edge of the cliff.”

You’ve run out of cotton balls, which means you’ve run out of energy to deal with this one-sided conversation.

“Strider, does this have a point?”

He shifts his weight, and looks down at his shoes, which is pointless because you can’t even see his eyes in the first place. “I guess what I’m saying is that I should have backed off earlier, and I’m sorry I didn’t. So, yeah.” He rocks back on his heels and shakes his head. “It’s been a rough week, huh.”

“Like fuck I know what that is, but yeah. It really has.”

You sit in silence for a moment, then ask, “Does the mayor have any more cotton balls?”

“Dude, we have all the fucking cotton balls.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, buddyfriendpals this is just a PSA that you shouldn't touch people having panic attacks unless they have explicitly told you it's okay. Trolls are the general exception, but even then touching is generally only acceptable if they trust you. 
> 
> Also, the cape thing is very specific to people who are comforted by pressure/texture/just straight out hiding, and should not be used as a catch-all example of How to Comfort a Panicking/Overstimulated Person. 
> 
> If you know anyone who experiences panic attacks or overstimulation, discuss their preferred MO beforehand. They might want space, a pad of paper to scribble down instructions, some music, a glass of water, or just a nice quiet corner.
> 
> In other news: 
> 
> [4/19/2016 10:57:52 PM] Air: [note: karkat just doesn’t know him well enough yet I JUST WANT TO PUT THAT OUT THERE] [DAVE ISN’T COOL]  
> [4/19/2016 10:57:55 PM] Air: i understand stella  
> [4/19/2016 10:58:00 PM] Air: we are in total agreement


	4. Apparently the human-earth floral corolla of the same name signifies romance, so that’s appropriate in some cosmically insignificant wordplay bullshit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which There is a Massive Amount of Romance, but Only in Theory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so a couple things I gotta say:  
> 1) I just want you guys to be aware that this isn't a backlog we've been updating these past four days. me and air, we sat the heck down and have literally written these 17,000 words in that time. we just KEPT AT IT. so, with that in mind,  
> 2) since the next few parts of the fic are a bit more unstructured and up in the air, I'm anticipating a bit of a slowdown in terms of DAILY HECKIN UPDATES. plus, I'm on the precipice of graduation and air is no doubt similarly drowning in schoolwork. if we actually can keep up the schedule of SOMEHOW WRITING A CHAPTER EVERY DAY, great! awesome! but please don't expect it.  
> 3) I don't actually feel any particularly strong feelings about Eridan, he's just a really easy target  
> 4) I'm not sorry  
> -Stella
> 
> We also have to research terrible movies for several of the coming updates, which also slows the march of progress a bit. Wish us luck.  
> -Air

It might come as a monumental shock to anyone who’s ever had the pleasure of spending a single biliously replete second with you, but you don’t have the temperament to suffer through quagmires of useless theatrical antics disguised as bureaucracy. You're fucking sick of the endless deluge of meetings, and you just need a fucking break. Or ‘8r8ke’, as a certain insufferable venomous backstabber would say. It’s just hours of Lalonde and Serket, after raiding secret meteor rooms, dumping all their information together in a way that excludes anyone not privy to their esoteric jargon and sparklefucking fortune magyks.

Terezi’s there to iron out strategy and wash it all down with her special brand of organization, and by that, you mean she’s there to orchestrate everything to be as similar as possible to one of her ludicrous courtblock roleplays, complete with hastily alchemized gavel. Dave’s there to scribble weirdly oblong and apparently "phallic” shapes over every available surface. Gamzee isn't there.

You don't really have anything to contribute, so you decide to just skip this one. You’d rather run the risk of inciting some patented spidertroll shitfit than waste your energy pretending to care about machinations that will likely exclude you, right up until the group at large decides the only useful application of your lugubrious existence is bait for one of the less threatening adversaries.

So, instead of wasting everyone’s time, you’ve elected to spend the valuable vestigial remnants of your life hanging over the backside of the communal couch, reading one of the trashiest novels you had the displeasure of saving from the ruins of Alternia. It’s one of your least favorites, which means you need to devote your full attention to keeping your internal monologue decrying its contrived plot precisely that: internal. It takes a lot of energy.

You _could_ try re-reading a novel you actually enjoy, but you’re not in the mood for any genuine emotion outside sanctimonious indignation.

The sixty-seventh page is turned to reveal that, surprise! Chiaro has harbored ashen feelings for Scuros and Karbia for the past three years, despite not being present for any of their arguments, or even being a suitable confidant for either party to have possibly involved! And yet, he seems to know everything about their situation already! Has he just been spying on them? Because Scuros sure as fuck didn’t tell him anything about her personal business, and Karbia hasn’t been his moirail since the inciting action at the beginning of the fucking book! Maybe if they _were_ moirails there’d be some fucking buildup, but this author is apparently allergic to any sensical form of storytelling.

You’re at what’s probably the fifth most aggravating passage of the book when you hear the distinctive sound of the transportalizer zapping some asshole into the common room. It takes you a moment to process that the asshole in question is Strider, and another to ensure you don’t flail onto the floor in a mortifying display of panicked wiggler antics.

Strangely enough, Strider doesn’t comment on your stunning display of coordination. Instead, he hones in on whatever beverage apparatus was recently added to the common room and makes what, if Sollux were around, you’d describe as a bee-line straight for it.

“Isn’t there a meeting?” You ask, over the desperate burbles emitting from across the room.

Strider shrugs without turning away from the machine. “It’s basically the Lalonde-Serket show, guest-starring Legislacerator Judy, so I bounced.”

Well that confirms what anyone with a functional puzzle sponge would know.

Strider makes his way to the table and takes a swig of his drink. He grimaces before the mug even hits the table; it’s saying something that you can tell, considering the fact that you’re upside down, and his sunglasses continue to cover half his face like a protective visor against acknowledgement of his blinding transgressions against multiple universes. That transgression being his very existence.

You stare at the pages for what seems like enough time to pass that, honestly, you're almost surprised the meteor hasn't yet reached the new session. You’re tense with the permanent rigidity of your posture pole that manifests in his presence, waiting for some inevitable jibe.

It doesn’t come.

Strider is, for the second time in his life, quiet. It’s hard fucking work to sneak a casual glance, considering your first impulse is to cant the book out your line of sight when you’re not looking directly at it, but if you pretend you’re rolling your gander bulbs (which isn’t hard, considering the utterly banal plot “twists” that make up the whole novel), you can keep an eye on him.

It isn’t until he finishes his mug of caffeinated sludge and uncaptchalogues a— fuck, what was the human word for husktop? Besides ‘non-organic, disturbingly stationary pile of metallic garbage,’ that is. Fuck it, it’s a humantop now. Anyway, you don’t say shit until he takes out his humantop, which is when you reach your max tolerance for freaky behavior.  

“Why are you being nice? It’s weird.”

Once again, the shades large enough to block out the light of the green sun are somehow defeated in their diabolical quest to ensure you have no fucking clue what he’s thinking. His eyebrow raises high enough for you to witness the blatant, universal display of ‘Karkat, what the fuck are you talking about,’ which is an emotion that everyone who has ever come into contact with you (including yourself) is _intimately_ familiar with. You immediately long for the inevitable moment you lose your grip on your post and fall into the sweet embrace of unconsciousness and-slash-or death.

“I’m not even talking to you. This isn't nice, this is the bare minimum of not a giant douche. Cordial city, here we come.”

You take a moment to consider his retort, parsing for any degree of ironic intent. For the second time in the aggregate of your interactions, there seems to be a distinct lack. “Well. Thanks.”

He seems taken aback at the lack of aggression. Newsflash, asshole: two can cross the metropolitan limits of cordial city, thank you very much.

You go back to your book, and he goes back to whatever the shit he’s doing with his humantop. Which is annoying, since it’s almost the size of the fucking table, but it’s not really worth kicking up a fuss over. You drape yourself backwards over the arm of the couch and continue reading.

 

* * *

 

The mayor is the single greatest creature upon which Paradox Space has ever deigned to gift sentience.

He always takes a moment to greet you, and even if you weren’t more desperate for validation than a frolicking newborn barkbeast, which you are, it’s nice to feel appreciated. He’s a carapacian of simple expectations, and the tasks he assigns you are straightforward; you feel like you’re finally accomplishing some modicum of productivity for the first time since the meteor left the dubious comfort of the green sun.

After the Cape Incident of Inner-City Cantown— to which you have built a small can memorial that doubles as tribute to your own ineptitude— the frequency of your visits have increased exponentially. This, of course, means that your chances of running into Strider increase by virtue of the same formula.

However, it seems the circadian gods have seen fit to smile upon you, as your schedules are barely acquainted, much less identical. Interactions with Strider are no longer an agonizing lesson in how much irritating blather you can endure, but they’re still uncomfortable. You get along best when he’s far enough into the maze of cans that you can easily ignore whatever muffled nonsensical utterance he expels. You don’t think he’s even talking to you in the first place, so it’s not like he cares if you’re listening.

On this particular venture into the heart of Cantown, however, Strider seems intent on a conversation. May your death be a swift one.

“Not to poke the proverbial bees’ nest of repressed emotions, like I’m starring in It’s Always Sunny in the Hundred-Acre Wood and we’re fresh out of honey— ‘cause let’s face it, Pooh’s an asshole—  but you do realize Terezi hasn’t been around in weeks, right? She’s busy planning endgame shit with spidertroll. She’s basically passed the baton of municipal responsibility to yours truly.”

You bite back your instinctive ‘none of your fucking business’ in favor of a much more civil “Newsflash asshole, my life doesn’t revolve around her.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

The cumulative force of your general regard for his buffoonery localizes to your middle finger, which you make sure he gets a good look at. Probably. Still hard to tell with the glasses.

As usual, he takes it in stride, electing to change the subject by saying “You’re a lot quieter than I thought you’d be.”

“That’s because I’m drawing, obviously.”

He walks over to your latest masterpiece, which is a banner for the public library. There is a stretch of blessed silence as he takes in the skillful rendering of one of your favorite novels, accompanied by a command to enter the establishment and pick up a new book today. You've written this in both Alternian and English because you’re an accommodating soul down in the recesses of your blood pusher, and also, because it makes you feel like you’ve one-upped a certain lumbering pile of cultural ignorance.

Strider whistles. “I guess it takes a lot of concentration to draw as badly as you do. Shit man, I couldn’t achieve that level of suck if I trained for forty days and forty nights, fighting off all the animals on the ark with a moldy box of broken crayons. Stab and parry, Noah, we ain’t got time for values— morally or artistically speaking—  when your life is at stake. The lion is your canvas, the rocking of the boat your inspiration. Your medium is waxy pigment blessed with the tears of angels and interns that wanted to land a spot at crayola but ended up at some off-brand generic substitute instead. That’s right kiddo, we aren’t even working with RoseArt. Keep scrubbing but that shit’s never coming off the walls.” Strider finally stops talking for a single glorious moment, then nods decisively. “We gotta do a collab comic.”

You scoff. “You’re still uploading that technicolor affront to the very concept of artistic integrity?”

“Hey now, let’s not jump straight into philosophical discourse on what constitutes art versus shart and the roles both play in society— I don’t think either of us are prepared to open that can of worms.”

“Is there even a ‘society’ that can be reached outside our fungal crotch infection that parodies a functioning community?”

“Irrelevant. Besides, all this free time is really gettin’ the creative juices flowin.”

You squint up at him, looking him up and down. “Don’t drip your ‘juices’ anywhere near me.”

He huffs out a laugh, then promptly about-faces straight back to whatever the fuck he was doing before he decided to prod you into a conversation.

Aliens are fucking weird.

 

* * *

 

Your days have since settled into a routine between killing time, suffering through meetings, and languishing in the unfortunate prevalence of dream bubbles. There is, of course, the occasional upset. Sometimes you end up in yet another screeching match with spidertroll, a competition to see who can hemorrhage into a rage-induced conniption first— the winner, of course, is always you. Sometimes there’s a brief instance where Kanaya isn't attached to Lalonde and is actually available for a pleasant conversation, an instance which you never take advantage of. Sometimes Terezi comes dangerously close to almost not avoiding you.

Today, this routine is disrupted when Lalonde approaches you with a request. As shocking a development it is, it’s somewhat predictable considering the subject matter. Inevitable, really.

You still milk it for all it's worth.

“I’m sorry, can you repeat that? I didn't have any opportunity to utilize a recording device, and I’d love to preserve this moment for posterity. Future generations will speak in hushed tones about the time Rose Lalonde prostrated herself before someone smarter than her.”

“I was merely asking if you were interested in discussing the differences between your conceptualization of romance versus my own.” She expertly sidesteps the entirety of your ramble, and there’s no doubt in your mind regarding her extensive experience on the matter. “I understand you have a vested interest in the subject.”

“Don't try to make this sound like a favor, _you’re_ coming to _me_ for help, and I’m going to bask in this moment during any and all future conversations we share. Any particular reason for the sudden interest?” You ask, as if you’re a clueless wiggler with its cartilaginous nub stuck firmly up its own ass.

“Can't an alien take a xenosociological interest in another culture?”

“Whatever you say, Lalonde, but I’m warning you— you’d better be prepared. If we’re doing this, we're going to be as thorough as fucking possible.”

It takes some time to set up, because an undertaking of this caliber needs some crucial preparation. You commandeer the common room after alchemizing a calcium slate of suitable size. The process takes longer with Lalonde’s help than it would have taken you alone— neither of you could figure out why until you realized that she’d been attempting to determine how to recreate a code for a ‘blackboard’ instead. Fucking bullshit highblood slang.

Eventually you give in and let Lalonde create the slate, but like hell you'll be calling it a 'blackboard'. It’s not like those are the only quadrants about to be slapped onto its temporarily austere surface. Once Lalonde alchemized the slate, along with some chalk because you'd sooner chug a vat of acid before pilfering Terezi’s disgusting, saliva-coated stash, the both of you settle into the common room for what’s no doubt the beginning of a very long conversation.

You start the lesson by drawing a large cross in the middle, with all the appropriate symbols in place. “From what I gather based on the interactions with the weaker-minded players of your session, the nuance of our emotions translates across a different plane in your… language? Fuck, I don't know how your pajama prodigy puzzle sponge translator works.”

“One of the many mysteries of SBURB’s— or in your case, SGRUB’s—  game mechanics. In all likelihood, it still had your system locale stored.”

“I wasn’t actually asking, so don’t interrupt. Anyway, our spectrum of emotion, from hate to pity, seems to have a fundamental difference in connotation to your human sensibilities, so you’d better adapt to that vocabulary if you want to get anywhere.”

To no one’s surprise, she grasps the flushed quadrant with ease. It’d be pretty pathetic if she didn’t, seeing as that’s the only quadrant humans have. To someone’s surprise (yours), the caliginous quadrant doesn't take too long to explain, though really, if there was any human capable of grasping the nuance of blackrom, it’d be Lalonde. She even picks up red-black vacillation, citing the apparent abundance in many popular examples of Earth entertainment.

“Okay, I get that the terrible names you bestow upon your movies are a result of your primitive culture’s fascination with simplifying the fuck out of everything, but what kind of inept shitguzzler names a play ‘Much Ado About Nothing’? Everything is much ado about nothing! I can’t express any singular emotion on this rock without it being much ado about— guess what! — absofuckinglutely nothing!”

“Take it out on Shakespeare; he was the one who wrote it.” Lalonde shakes her head with her ever-present air of supercilious amusement. “The title is actually a pun that refers to genitalia.”

“Of course it is! When does your species not go out of their way to reference the existence of their weird human nook-bulge equivalent?”

“You’re certainly one to talk. What was it you were yelling at Vriska earlier? ‘You bulgechafing remains expelled from the backside of a lusus’?”

You almost cross your arms before realizing you’d be dangerously close to smudging the slate. “The point is, Troll Shakespeare would be a much better example, as his writings are infinitely superior.”

Lalonde gives you a look that makes you feel like you’re being indulged, as if you’re some tantrum-throwing wiggler. Then, she nods in an absolutely shocking show of agreement and common sense. “That’s true. Being raised in a society steeped with the cultural values that give rise to the quadrant system, and all it entails, would make him far more capable of portraying vacillation to your standards.”

You squint at her, determining her sincerity. “Exactly,” you say, once you find them to be at appropriate levels.

“I still think you might find 10 Things I Hate About You to be a fascinating study in human perceptions of red-black vacillation, however.”

“The title sounds promising, if far too simplistic,” you admit.

She smiles, looking entirely too pleased with herself. After a moment, however, she looks like she’s attempting to wring out her think pan.

“Don't trolls experience positive social interaction with their peer group outside a romantic context? I doubt there was a love n-drangle that spanned all twelve of you.”

“Well _obviously_ not, imagine how much more an unmitigated disaster that would’ve been.” Not to say it wasn’t an unmitigated disaster. Everything in your session was an unmitigated disaster, especially whatever related to your romantically incompetent peers. “While troll relationships are infinitely more complex than human relationships, we’re fully capable of interacting with one another without exploring the depths of the romantic pool; it’s just more difficult to parse our spectrum of emotion, since we’re so much more advanced as a society. If every interaction we have is underlaid with the throb of casual distrust, of course our perception of positive social interactions would be different from yours. You humans, in contrast, act as if you’re courting pale every time you interact with another individual. It’s fucking weird.”

“I didn’t realize,” Lalonde says.

“Yeah, well, we’re all pretty much used to it now.” Vriska and Terezi think it’s hilarious. Kanaya seems to think it’s nice. Last time Gamzee interacted with a human didn’t go that fucking well, so you’re just gonna push that aside.

“If you don’t mind explaining, what does moirallegiance entail, exactly?”

You tap the table idly, thinking how to comprehensively explain the intricacies of moirallegiance. Honestly, the best way is a practical example.

“Not to speak ill of the dead while airing out their putrid, urine-soaked laundry for the entire world to see, except fuck it, I'm still pissed at the insipid, grubfisted pustule. Also, you don't know him and you never will, unless you're masochistic enough to go out of your way and subject yourself to the blithering of any version of him. So let’s start gossiping about the failed romantic pursuits of codename: Fishfuck Pissant.”

Lalonde looks amused, and it occurs to you that there’s a very good chance Eridan, in a show of his special brand of coruscating brilliance, probably tried to flirt with her.

Anyway.

“Fishfuck here is basically the epitome of everything that could go wrong with a moirallegiance. First of all, he didn't want to be in a moirallegiance, he wanted to be in a matespritship. These hidden red feelings fuck up any possibility of a healthy dynamic, because a good moirallegiance is all about open communication— how’s your moirail supposed to help if you can't tell her anything, asshole?” You shake your head in retrospective disdain. “I'm pretty sure he ended up talking more to me about his gripes than his actual moirail.”

“Then, is there no conflation between friendship and moirallegiance? Wouldn't that be pale infidelity?”

“You can be friends without being moirails, there’s just none of that implicit responsibility that you’re required to hear them out. This isn’t my job, you shit-coated sack of emotional issues, go talk to someone who cares. That someone would be, if they’re lucky, their moirail.”

Lalonde inclines her head. “That fits in with what you said about positive social interactions.” She clasps her prongs. “What’s stopping someone from being moirails with multiple parties? Spreading the burden, so to speak?”

“Being burned the fuck out, for one. Moirallegiance is a taxing quadrant - all of them are. Spreading it out doesn't lessen the load; it sucks everyone into a black hole of instability and shared regret. The problem is you’re thinking about this in terms of general relationships, when it’s specifically about protection and pacification. I know I said you humans all act weirdly pale all the time, but you probably don't dump your extensive personal issues on everyone you see. Then again, your species is undeveloped enough that maybe it's the norm to emotionally exhaust yourself and then die.”

“I see,” she says, and there’s no cloud of confusion obscuring her visage. You try not to be too impressed, because this is all basic fucking knowledge. “So if that’s how friendship interacts with the pale quadrant, what’s the effect of feelings on the redder shade of the spectrum?” Lalonde interjects. “Do red relationships always complicate things in the same manner? Or is there a large variety of new and creative ways to turn a moirallegiance into a disastrous train-wreck?"

“It definitely depends on who's mainly pacifying and who's mainly being pacified. If a troll on the pacified end spends the majority of the relationship concealing their actual feelings, they can’t be effectively pacified. If a troll on the pacifying end has an impairment of judgement because of their flushed leanings, they can't effectively pacify.” You rap the slate with your chalk.

“Bear in mind, this is an incredibly simplified portrayal of the pale quadrant— in a good moirallegiance, the roles aren't so clear cut, there’s a give and take. Let's get back to Fishfuck a second, because I hate that guy. He’s the neediest siphon of social energy anyone could have the displeasure of interacting with. I can’t speak for his moirail, but from my experience there was zero reciprocity, just an endless pivot-pointed teeterboard between having to laboriously extract whatever crisis is currently afflicting his deplorable life, or being subjected to the violet spew of bile entailing every insecurity you didn’t want to know.”

You take a second to remember how terrible Eridan is, then move on to the real issue: how this all plays into romantic media.

“Popular pale media will lead you to believe that's the norm, but it’s not! Having someone like that is emotionally exhausting, not to mention pretty selfish. What’s the point of expending so much of your energy on a constant threat? That’s a good way to get everyone culled, or at least ensure the persistence of a rotating postern of moirail meat-shields. In a highblood-lowblood dynamic, that is.”

By this point you’ve started pacing, flailing about as if conducting an ensemble that might as well be called ‘objectively true and incredibly insightful analysis about the state of Alternian society,’ because that's exactly what you're doing. “It’s different the higher up you get on the hemospectrum. Basically, the idea that one troll is in constant need of pacification, and the other’s sole job is to cater to their every emotional whim is a load of highblood propaganda, so you get media that reinforces the idea that a reciprocal dynamic is favored only by unsocialized trolls raised in isolation with half a think pan.”

“Media does tend to do that, doesn’t it?” Lalonde doesn’t seem to have any expressions that don’t convey either smug superiority or condescending amusement. Still, you’re not going to let infuriating human word games throw you off when you’re rolling down the slanted lawnring of being absolutely, objectively correct.

“Yes, and it does it for a reason! Sociologically speaking, highbloods are in more desperate need of moirails. It’s not that they’re particularly hostile, it’s that they have enough power, influence, and lifespan that the consequences of their terrible life choices are more of a pants-shitting herald of apocalyptic doom than that of your average lowblood. But I'm getting off topic.” You take a breath and straighten your posture, clapping your prongs together. Gesturing to the calcium slate, you point at the diamond.

“Moirallegiance is the quadrant that relies on interpersonal trust, as opposed to the trust that your partner can keep up with your various antics. It relies on open communication, and sometimes that means a bit of arguing— you can't just be a doormat to your moirail’s terrible decisions. But, and this is important, Lalonde, so listen up!”

Lalonde arches an eyebrow at you, but otherwise appears attentive. “I’m listening.”

“There shouldn't be outright contention. There is nothing messier than pale-black vacillation, and I say this after suffering through Strider’s many, _many_ meandering and pointless rambles. It has the most potential for conflict, so a lot of trashy books throw it in for the sake of it, but everyone knows if you let pale go black, both of you are incompetent, pus-filled, excessively oiled pores on the diseased bulge of society. Now those are some trolls who can't be trusted with someone else’s emotional state. It’s all unnecessary melodrama that’s never developed as well as such a complex transition of emotions should be. Ashen-black has much more discernible development, it’s infinitely easier to understand. Even pale-ashen, as contrived as it is, follows an actual pattern of conscious thought!”

Lalonde smirks. “Ah, it warms the cockles of my heart to know that trope contention is a universal constant.”

“You don’t know the half of it, Lalonde. Concupiscent quadrants live and die by opinions on prevalent archetypes,” you say, trying to encompass just how widespread the phenomenon is by spreading your arms wide for emphasis. “That’s the main difference between moirallegiance and the concupiscent quadrants— the concupiscent quadrants are basically the ones you want to show your best to. You don’t want to lose face in front of your kismesis, and you don’t want to give your matesprit a reason to look down on you. Respect is the key word here. Kismesissitude without respect on one side or the other becomes unhealthy as fuck, and if there’s no respect on either side, what’s the point? Matespritship follows that rule too, but there’s generally not as much need for the ashen quadrant to keep it in check, unless your redrom descends into some flaming pale-red composite wreckage.”

Rose shifts her weight, leaning in. “I see,” she says, seeming to consider your words with the gravity they justly deserve. She taps the calcium slate. “Now, I believe I have a vague understanding of auspisticism, but not quite enough to fully comprehend its intricacies.”

You frown. “The ashen quadrant isn't necessary for happiness so much as it’s a necessity for a troll that socializes anywhere beyond their own quadrant. Not sure what you’ve picked up on about our species, but trolls are violent.” You tap your pointed teeth, taking care not to cut yourself because wouldn’t that be embarrassing.

“I never would have guessed,” Lalonde says.

“That’s because you’re a squishy fleshbag that grew up in a society with some circuitous attitude towards violence that’s impossible to understand. Humans idolize anyone with the capacity to do damage, then turn around and bluster about peace in some absurdly sanctimonious identity crisis.”

Lalonde uncaptchalogues a notepad and a pen faster than you thought possible. “I see.” She stares at you, one eyebrow arched as if poised to escape from the rest of her smug countenance. “And how would you say this reflects your own—”

“Lalonde, if you turn this back around to some analysis of my personal failures, I am walking out of this block and taking my calcium slate with me.”

The pen and paper disappear. “Fair. Continue.”

You huff, settling back into your lecture. “ _As I was saying_ , the ashen quadrant prevents unnecessary death, as well as black infidelity, which potentially involves death. It isn't necessarily a permanent quadrant, unlike what’s ideal for the other three, but it’s the hardest one to navigate because it’s so heavily reliant on disposition and third-party intuition. You have to find someone who cares enough about at least one of the trolls to intervene, as well as someone with enough interpersonal acumen to understand when to intervene.” Kanaya is the only troll you know with a temperament suitable for it, and even she couldn’t handle it for long. You don’t mention this to Lalonde because you’re not that much of a belligerent swill-guzzling asswagon. “It’s probably the hardest to navigate specifically because it’s so transitional. It’s also the most spontaneous and unpredictable of the quadrants, so if you’re ever reading something with extensive ashen pinning, there’s a good fucking chance it’s an irredeemable blot on the face of literature.

Lalonde clasps her prongs.“What if an auspistice is already in a relationship with one of the trolls, and intervenes because they care about their partner’s welfare?”

You look at her in approval. “I’m impressed Lalonde, you’ve hit upon one of the staple tropes of romantic conflict.” You start drawing arrows from one quadrant to another.

“Troll romance takes a lot of energy to navigate when you're balancing it along with other relationships. It’s formatted so you have one person per quadrant. If someone pulls you out of your designated quadrant, it’s going to characterize your relationship even if you don't have the third party physically present. Whoever’s the auspistice is now preoccupied with how best to intervene, which happens even when that’s their only relationship; whoever _isn’t_ the auspistice knows they’re not the priority anymore. That’s going to cause some dramatic shift in dynamic, no matter what you do. You can try to occupy multiple quadrants at once, but you’d fail.” You tap the calcium slate with your chalk. “That’s why we have vacillation. You can’t have more than one quadrant at a time; it just doesn’t work.” You’re not bitter, so you most definitely don’t sound like a petulant wiggler. You’re in the zone; untouchable.

You clear your throat. “I'd talk to Kanaya about it— she may have unfortunate taste in literature, but she has an analytical intuition for interpersonal dynamics on par with my own, especially in the ashen quadrant. If I was in one, which _first of all_ would be nobody’s business, I’ll tell you now that I sure as fuck wouldn't be the auspistice.”

“High praise indeed.” There’s the eyebrow again. You want to know which one of the trolls is responsible for the humans being able to maneuver one eyebrow at a time, but you’re certain it would turn out to be you, considering you’re responsible for literally everything else that could hold the barest potential to fuel your personal torment.

Speaking of fueling your own torment, you have a new idea that could either manifest in spectacular disaster, or a happy Kanaya. With a payoff matrix like that, the choice is obvious. “I can also lend you some guides, if you’re interested,” you say.

“Guides?” There’s a clear spark of interest, which is promising.

“Yeah. There’s an extensive collection of books filled with advice and explanations, ranging from ‘actually legitimate’ to ‘a disgusting and potentially fatal show of incompetence’. I’ve written notes on the margins.” And on the additional pages you added yourself. And on the pull out extensions you added to several of those inserts. “I’ll lend you one that doesn’t induce vomiting every time I so much as glance at the cover,” you tell her.

“That would be greatly appreciated, Karkat, except for one minor detail.”

“What?”

“I can’t read Alternian.”

You roll your gander bulbs. “Don’t you have a godtier translation power?”

“Why, yes, I do. How remiss of me to forget! I shall immediately get to work transcribing the most refined Earth sayings in the beautiful Alternian tongue, such as, ‘The Gift of Gab Doesn’t Work Like That’.”

“My fucking mistake then.” If your glance nuggets take one more rotational excursion into the recesses of your orbital cavities, you're sure they’d be loose enough to fall out of your skull. “In that case, why don’t you get Kanaya to translate? I’m sure she’ll be happy to help.”

You’re fucking welcome, Kanaya.

Lalonde’s smile is slight, but it still assures you that her face can make expressions that aren’t ranked on a scale from borderline condescending to condescending indulgence.

“This was… an illuminating conversation,” she says.  “You're quite adept at explaining the intricacies of romance.”

You snort. “I had a lot of practice with some incompetent feculent grubs who couldn't conceptualize the inner workings of functional relationships if an instruction manual was tattooed to their bulge. It’s not too hard to translate wigglertalk to a clueless alien.”

“It’s a shame you didn’t troll me more. Think of all the hours of conversation we missed.”

I know when not to be an incompetent bulgeblocking douche by attempting to play think pan games with the crush of my closest friend, is something you don't say. You go with another embarrassing truth instead. “We both know that you would’ve run circles around my incompetent ass, analyzed every pathetic claim to escape my chitinous windhole, and kicked off a feedback loop of my own thoughts. I would've ended up questioning every decision I ever had the displeasure of making before I got two paragraphs worth of words in edgewise. I knew that before I even spoke to you. _You’re_ exactly what I expected, Lalonde.”

Lalonde, who had looked far too pleased throughout your diatribe, narrows her eyes. “Oh?”

“Oh, what?” You snap. “Do you want an encore?”

“No, not at all. I’m quite satisfied with the original performance.” She has a look like a cat sizing up its prey, which is one you are unfortunately familiar with after sweeps of one-sided roleplay directed at your uncooperative ass. “It’s just that your intonation was _very_ interesting when you specified that I met expectations. You seemed to be implying that someone else has not.”

Why does she make everything sound like it’s forbidden fucking knowledge that she’s determined to investigate until she understands every last facet? Your opinion of Strider isn’t that much of a secret, but here you are, feeling like it’s something you need to hide just because Rose Lalonde looked at you funny.

“I _suppose_ Strider isn't as much of a miserable antagonistic shitsponge as I first thought. Surprisingly enough, he tends to back the fuck off when I need to be left alone.” That’s probably a safe admission.

“Did you expect him to go out of his way to antagonize you? As hard as it might be to process, his life doesn’t revolve around making yours miserable.”

“What does Strider’s life revolve around if not making other people miserable?” You ask, though it doesn't come out as vitriolic as it once might've.

Lalonde smiles. “Why don’t you ask him?”

“I’ll schedule it in right after my bi-perigee hive cleaning rituals. Oh! Wait! I don’t have a hive anymore! Well, there goes that plan. I guess I’ll have to settle for avoiding any possibility of meaningful interaction with your ectotwin, forever.”

“The same way you've been avoiding Kanaya?”

“I'm not avoiding Kanaya,” you say, though it sounds defensive even to your own aural cavities.“I’m giving her space. That’s supposed to be her aspect, right? She needs a lot of it, probably.”

“‘Giving someone space’ doesn't mean the bare minimum of interaction to prevent the other party from observing you and whatever issues you are attempting to hide. You’re much more transparent than you think you are. She’s been leaving you alone because she thought that _you_ were the one who needed space, but if she realized for a heartbeat that you were presuming to spare her the burden of your friendship, she would be with us at this very moment. Most likely armed with a tongue lashing, as well.”

Alright, what kind of barbaric society lashes people with tongues? Whatever. Okay. That’s a thing, apparently.

“Talk to Kanaya,” Lalonde commands, one last time. She stands up and begins to leave.

“Do you still want the guide, or was this all some grubfisted ploy to get me to fart my opinions out of my gullet long enough for you to get a read on the most appropriate time to lecture me about my duties as a friend?”

“Oh, Karkat.” Lalonde shakes her head. “You should know by now that I never do anything without the potential to reap multiple benefits.”

“You and Serket should start a Saying Creepy Shit for No Reason other to Intimidate collective, because if you both keep trying to corner the market like this you’ll drive each other out of business.”

“So, Dave was right about the sickle.”

“What the actual fuck are you talking about now?”

“Outdated earth humor that I feel obligated to propagate. It’s all rather tasteless in hindsight, poking fun at aspects of a dead world, but…” Lalonde shrugs. “Our perception is all that’s left, and so we determine what we carry on. Perhaps I will decide to lay my jokes about political ideologies on the wayside, and instead carry on my extensive knowledge of worsted yarn. Perhaps not. There’s still time to decide.”

Her gaze settles on you for a moment, and you feel like she’s waiting for something. Well, tough luck. You told her that you weren’t subjecting yourself to her emotional dissection, and you’re keeping a firm distance from that scalpel.

She sighs. “Yes, I still want that guide you mentioned. Is there a time that works best for you in making the exchange?”

You shrug. “I’ll look around for you later.” After a moment’s hesitation, you add, “Or I’ll ask Kanaya where I can find you.”

She smiles and oh, fuck, this is another fucking beneficial outcome whatever, isn’t it? Fuck. You swear by the mother grub’s primordial ooze that light players are going to be the fucking death of you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [2:52:06 PM] Stella: okay so when I thought blackboard I was thinking legit school blackboard on a wheely thing  
> [2:52:24 PM] Stella: but with the arm crossing thing, I think we're thinking different blackboards?  
> [2:52:36 PM] Stella: because I don't know how crossed arms would smudge it  
> [2:55:51 PM] Air: AH YEAH  
> [2:55:55 PM] Air: I was thinking  
> [2:56:07 PM] Air: Handheld blackboard like you buy at a dollar store  
> [2:56:37 PM] Air: See. This is the exact problem Karkat and Rose had  
> [2:56:49 PM] Air: Essential blackboard perception issues  
> [2:56:50 PM] Stella: life imitates art  
> [2:58:03 PM] Air: life imitates art  
> [2:58:58 PM] Stella: well hey, that could be our daily (HOW WILD IS IT THAT IT'S ACTUALLY BEEN DAILY) chapter end note convo  
> [3:04:01 PM] Air: YEP


	5. Who the fuck uses actual words as names, why would any creature capable of sentient thought accept introducing somebody as ‘my good friend, an incredibly specific verbal action,’ there’s no context in which that wouldn’t sound completely ridiculous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Interpersonal Dynamics May Be More Complex Than They First Appear, and Consistently Having to React to Situations as They Occur Becomes Somewhat of a Burden.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well we're back a lot earlier than I thought  
> -Stella
> 
> I would like to say that we personally survived reading the wikipedia article and watching the credits and first two minutes of Good Luck Chuck before throwing in the towel. We did, however, force ourselves to sit through the entirety of 10 Things I Hate About You. Also we in no way endorse watching either of those movies because we will never get those hours of our life back, and you won't either. That said, we hope you enjoy the spoils of our efforts.  
> \- Air

It’s well into the second perigee and you're already at the seventh meeting you've had the displeasure to attend. Thankfully, the novelty of being alive and on a large rock hurtling through the veil seems to have lost its luster, which means you don't get called in for a meeting every time Serket stubs her frond pod, that is, _multiple times a day_. There's still quite a few meetings you're forced to skip so you don’t throw yourself off the meteor, but you just get Lalonde or Strider to fill you in about what you’ve missed, which is: nothing. But honestly, Serket will take any excuse to gather you all so she can bask in the incessant flapping of her own gaping and unpleasant orifice. She found a new room! She woke up from her nap! She wants to make plans! She wants to go over details! She wants to repeat those plans and details in an infinitely useless feedback loop of self-aggrandization!

The only positive is when Lalonde perforates Serket’s supposedly flawless strategies with basic fucking logic, which you're increasingly appreciative of, but the thing is, nobody has enough information about anything yet! So! This entire farce is an exercise in wasting time! And throughout the meaningless repetition of facts and strategies that always seem to have the same glaring omissions— after all, Paradox Space might self-implode the second Serket decides to be completely transparent about her schemes— you've noticed something fishy. You’re talking sea dweller caught in the sun, fishy. Putrid stench of rotting aquatic carrion, fishy. Everyone’s probably thinking about it, but if you bring it up, you’re likely to be culled. Or in this case, shoved into the ‘brig’, as Vriska refers to it, though it’s really just a disgusting closet-sized receptacle for feces.

Unless you _are_ the only one thinking about it. If that’s the case, you’ll continue to act like the stubborn braybeast you are and pretend that’s not the case. The problem is already a feculent quagmire of emotions without the contribution of your personal baggage, so it can't just be you.

The problem in question being the total and complete absence of a certain homicidal murderclown who used to be one of your closest friends.

No one mentions him. You see him occasionally, but only in passing. Every once in a while, a stray honk will scare the shit out of you, and you’re pretty sure there’s a horn buried between the cushions in the common room, but otherwise he’s effectively phased himself out of your life.

Sometimes you see him being harassed by Vriska, and you don't know what to feel. Two equal instincts assault your think pan with the same ambivalent intensity: one being, ‘hey asshole, protect your useless simpering friend, he’s pathetic and his vapid obsession with his spurious bullshit miracles make him way too easy of a target’; the other being, ‘remember when you thought he was going to kill you and everyone you knew, and also, when he actually did kill multiple people you knew.’

So you do what you do best. You convert the kinetic energy of your emotional bullshit into decibelic outrage and let everyone else deal with it instead.

“Am I going to have to bring up the no longer bound and gagged, but _still figuratively present_ trunkbeast in the room _again_.”

“What are you talking about?” Terezi asks, which is basically the only sentence she’s seen (sniffed?) fit to bestow upon you this entire journey.

“I can't believe it. It’s the same question, even! If I didn’t know better, I’d think that Strider trapped us all in a closed timeloop to spite me, specifically! I wouldn't be surprised if he did an aerial somersault through a series of obtuse and superfluous hoops just to make some asinine reference that no one but him will even get!”

“Excuse you, Groundhog Day was shit. Rose probably watched it more times than I ever will.”

“You see!”

“Get to the point,” Vriska says, looking like this entire exchange is the sensory equivalent of being force-fed manure, which is possibly the only thing you have in common. Other than your shared species. Drawing this out isn't doing you any favors either, so you do, in fact, get to the point.

“What are we going to do about Gamzee?”

She laughs, actually laughs, except it’s the kind of laugh you know is painfully contrived because who the fuck actually says ‘ha’ when they laugh, much less _count out eight distinct interjections._ “Get with the program Karkat, he ain't a threat.”

“Yeah, no kidding - anyone who can bear to strain their glance nuggets looking at the unfortunate results of your genetic slurry can see that. I can't believe you'd sink so low that you'd make _Gamzee_ your own personal slave. Don’t get me wrong, I had zero expectations in regards to your moral character, I’m just saying that’s pretty pathetic, even for you. But, hear me out: what are you going to do with him? Just shove him into a thermal hull while playing your own seedflap like a harmonica?”

“Who cares! He’s irrelevant.”

You are just about ready to bash your skull onto the table, repeatedly, until met by the only possible comfort available to you. Death. “It doesn't _matter_ how _relevant_ he is, he’s still something you have to _include in your vacuous troll-machiavellian plans,_ you _incompetent dunderfuck_.”

“It wouldn’t be unproductive to take every consideration into account, especially since there is a finite amount of new information we’ve access to. There’s only so much we can do until we find another room, or dissect an appropriately illuminating dream bubble.” Is that the beginnings of a salubrious tiding of shade, a sanctuary from the blistering anguish of Vriska’s unbearable egoism? Can it be? Is Lalonde finally getting fed up with this fetid morass of bullshit too?

“Honestly, I still don't know what the deal with that clown is,” Strider says. “I can't believe I'm sincerely asking this, in a literal context, but. What's the deal with that clown? Like, the head thing made me not want to ask, which I think was the point, but hearing muffled honking in the distance every time I’m boarding the slumbertrain to bubble junction? That kind of makes you want to know what the fuck is up.”

Terezi sighs. “All I can tell you is that he killed people that needed the least amount killing. Also he’s one of the reasons the original alpha timeline fell apart.”

Wow, _what_. “Well, that takes a load off my neurotic anguish bladder, I now fully endorse team ‘let’s ignore any and all potential threats shoved bulge-first directly below our cartilaginous nubs.’ Oh, wait! That sounds like hard fucking evidence that we should be soldering our glance nuggets to him!”

“I’m still willing to hunt him down,” Kanaya offers casually. She isn’t playing with her lipstick, but the intent is still there.

“And I’m still not that fucking enthused about increasing the body count! I appreciate that you’re actually willing to do something, Kanaya, but I’d appreciate it even more if the thing in question didn’t involve chainsaws!"

“We’re not even in Texas anymore,” Strider interjects, “but I guess it’s not really a massacre if it’s one person. Yeah, I can’t work with this analogy. It’s dead. I killed it. Like Kanaya could’ve hypothetically killed Gamzee in some timeline directly adjacent to ours.”

“Thanks! For that contribution! It was really helpful in accomplishing absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of figuring out how to solve the fucking problem!”

“Alright! Alright. Fine. You've made your point,” Vriska says. “I’ll tell you my flawless plan to take care of the Gamzee thing. Listen up.” She squints at you. “Are you listening? Keep your ears wide open because I'm going to tell you. Right now.”

“I await with bated breath. Oh, I'm sorry - let me put that in enormous toolbag! Maybe then you’ll show the barest hints of aural comprehension! Here goes.” You clear your throat dramatically. “I aw8 with 88ed 8reath!”

“First, I'm going to ignore your useless babble. Then, I am going to tie him up, and I am going to leave him wherever we won't trip over his stationary, harmless body!”

You pretend to consider this with all the careful attention it isn't worth. “Like all your plans, that was a thoughtless waste of all the irretrievable seconds I lost listening to it. Strider, help me out here - can you please send me back so I can regain those precious seconds of naivety, back when I thought there was hope for something other than quintessential spidertroll garbage?”

“Well, I could, but you'd probably end up dead.”

“Even better!”

“Thank you for your input,” Terezi interrupts, derailing the useless shitfest. “Her most honorable tyranny will no doubt take your concerns into account!” Terezi gestures to Rose, who pounds the gavel onto the desk. “The motion is passed! Let’s move on.”

With that, Terezi manages to get the group back on track to some parodistic approximation of productivity.

 

* * *

 

It takes you longer than it should to work up the nerve to approach Kanaya, but eventually you’re motivated by the fact that 1) if this works out she’s going to really fucking owe you, and 2) for every day spent dawdling in the shallow pools of hesitation like a pupating jackass, you can feel Lalonde’s noetic judgement. So. One night, you finally go to the common room around the time Kanaya usually settles there.

“Hey, Kanaya.”

“Karkat,” she says, looking up from one of her trashy rainbow drinker atrocities. “I have not heard from you in quite some time.” Well, you guess she’s figured out by now you've been avoiding basically everyone including her. She’s a smart one, that Maryam. “How are things?”

“I'm about as good as I can be, considering I’m wasting the next sweep or so of my life on this hellish rock.” You shuffle a bit, shifting in place, before you decide to just get on with it. You take out The Book, which had been hastily wrapped with whatever you had on hand— that is, old movie posters you’ve stopped giving a shit about. It would look like present, if it wasn’t wrapped by someone who didn’t give a shit. “Can you give this to Rose?”

“Anything to facilitate a harmonious relationship between our species.”

“Great, thanks.”

Well, that’s taken care of.

She gives you a look. “What?”

“I was hoping we could talk more— we have not had the chance for a legitimate conversation in quite some time. Not outside our serial meetings.” Her smile looks hopeful, and for a second you feel like the meteor itself will buckle and fracture under the weight of your guilt. You’re a tool.

“I suppose I could pencil you in my busy schedule. You’re in luck— my bi-perigee carbon-dioxide recycling session has just been moved.”

Her smile turns the slightest bit indulgent, which is never as infuriating as it is when anyone else projects their smug superiority all over the place.

Silence descends, reclines on its lazy ass, takes an undeserved nap like the useless lazy fuck it is, and sticks around like the most aggravating hiveguest anyone could possibly have the misfortune of hosting. Soon enough, a horrifying epiphany hits you with the grace of an unconscious psiioniic dropped down the stairs— you realize you’re the one who has to break it, as is apparently your sole purpose in this and every timeline. And, as always, you tackle it with your usual strategy— floundering over your nonexistent filter and crashing into the most painful rocks off the coast of emotional ruin.

“I never apologized, so. Sorry.”

Kanaya regards you with confusion, except somehow more elegant. “For what?”

“Getting you killed.” Yep, just going to get right to it like an oversized bovine surrounded by expensive glass wares. She look a bit like she’s enjoying the performance.

“Karkat, you had nothing to do with my death.”

“I mean, I know that. I do! It’d be pretty myopic, not to mention egotistical as shit, for me to take full responsibility, but everyone knows I can't stop talking about myself for a fucking second, and I still feel like I share some of the shit-encrusted blameberry pie.” You take a breath. “The fact of the matter is, I got you killed. Thank the sweet mother grub you rose from the grave like some beacon of wish-fulfillment your six-sweep-old self always dreamed of becoming, but that doesn't change the fact that you’re undead because of me. It worked out for you. It didn't work out for everyone else.”

“Do you…” she considers you for a second, most likely attempting to determine the remaining allocation of meddling available to her before you decide to flail straight into one of your usual tantrums. “Do you blame me for killing Eridan?”

“No. Of course not. He filled his recuperacoon, and it was high time for him to do a magnificent swan-dive into it. I just wish. Fuck, I don't know. I should've noticed where he was heading. I knew about his issues with Sollux and Feferi, but I still let it erupt in a spectacularly disastrous wreckage. Maybe if I jumped in and auspicticized, he would've realized how far he was blowing everything out of proportion and, also, what a throbbing nookscraper he was being. Or maybe if I didn't brush off his ridiculous pale flirting…” You grimace. “I mean, don't get the wrong idea, I'm just saying I could've addressed his antics instead of ignoring them and hoping he'd get the hint. There were ways to avoid that entire mess, and I feel like a hypocritical, shortsighted shitscraper for not realizing sooner.”

You scuff at the floor. “What's the point of familiarizing myself with romantic drama if I can't put it into practical application? The one singular area of expertise I can claim, and I was completely useless. And that's not the only dimension across which I dropped the ball of leadership into the abyss of incompetence!” You curl your hand into your hair and tug in frustration.

“I told Equius to kill him. To kill Gamzee, too. But I knew he couldn't. Even when I was flipping my shit to a state of permanent and perpetual velocity, I knew there’d be no way the guy who basically jacks off to the hemospectrum every day of his repugnant existence would outright _kill_ someone “above” him. Even with that “dignified feud” bullshit, there’s no way he would’ve shoved his splintered bow up Eridan’s piscal sphincter! And let’s not even get into how he thought Gamzee was apparently “accepting his role as highblood” or whatever. I should've messaged Nepeta! She would've gotten shit done.”

“I sent someone to his death for something I didn't even want.”

Kanaya frowns. “Oh, Karkat. You didn't force Eridan to kill Feferi. You didn’t force Equius to sacrifice himself. You didn’t force Gamzee to kill Equius, or Nepeta. You are not responsible for the decisions of others.”

You laugh, but as usual, you can never seem to get it right. It always comes out bitter. “Everyone seems to be going out of their way to tell me that.”

“Then perhaps you should listen.” Kanaya recaptchalogues her book, discarding the fallacious possibility of returning to it anytime soon. “I wish I could say that things turned out the way they meant to, in order for this timeline to succeed, but I fear that I cannot agree with Terezi and Vriska as wholeheartedly on that subject as I would like.” Once again Kanaya Maryam shows the bare minimum of critical thought, which is why she continues to be your favorite. She crosses her arms.

“The matriorb has been destroyed, trolls are dead, and I am quite at a loss to justify things myself. It seems it should be easy to write it off by saying that this has been predestined from the start, but that does not allow us to better swallow the bitter grub paste of knowing that we personally are left to face the consequences of it all. I…”

There’s a hitch in her breath, and once again you feel the dawning realization of your callous disregard to the emotional state of your friends. You asshole.

“I miss Feferi’s exuberance. It feels strange to say, as we’ve seen her several times throughout these past perigees, but still.” Kanaya sighs. “She wanted to make so many things right. She was _ready_ to make things right. There was so much potential...” The luminescence of her weird rainbow drinker skin intensifies for a moment, before stabilizing into a modest glow that isn't as painful to look at.

“I do not think it is right for us to disregard such a loss,” she says, shaking her head, “and I am not comfortable with acting as if these losses, or our own personal choices, or our own personal failures, are more meaningful by virtue of allowing us access to the alpha timeline. It feels presumptuous to act as if those who have faced other trials that perhaps exceeded the difficulty of our own have led a less valuable existence. Although, I will admit that I am finding the appeal of timelines where I died very early in the session lacking, to a certain degree.”

Her gaze focuses on you. “I suppose what I am saying is that you made choices that made sense to you at the time, just as I have, and we both will continue to make such decisions in the future. We will also have to deal with the whispers of unease that suggest we may be removing ourselves from the proper timeline, or that we are destined to be removed from the proper timeline, and that will no doubt influence our final resolutions. However, these decisions are still valid.”

She stares right at you as she says, “Whether or not we made good choices, we made valid ones. We will have to live with them. It is all we can do.”

You stare at her for a long moment before your face scrunches up and you throw your dignity out the window like the recurrent load gaper that’s been hurled through the walls of your self-respect. You lean into her, and because she’s the best, she doesn't say anything— she just wraps an arm around you, accepting your stunning display of wiggler hysterics. “Why didn’t I talk to you earlier?” You ask, trying not to utterly lose it like the emotional wreck you are.

“Because I would have talked sense into you, and we can’t have that. It would ruin the entire timeline.”

“Well, I can't actually say you’re wrong without lying so egregiously that actual shit starts drip from my mouth, but fuck you.”

“I am allowed to make jokes at your expense for a length of time proportional to that you spent ignoring me, although I will not, as you are too sensitive for such prolonged treatment.”

“I can't even begin to tell you how fucking floored I am by your benevolence,” you say, an artful display of Troll-Schrödinger’s sincerity.

After a moment, you grumble, “This doesn’t change the fact that I’m a failure of a leader.” It doesn't get any less true no matter how many times you say it, but Kanaya still shakes her head.

“You did the best with what you had. That is why you are our leader.”

You don't say anything to that.

 

* * *

 

The common room is an incredibly useful space for existing in the presence of other people, without the obligation of actually talking to them. It’s not entirely unavoidable, but for the most part, unless you go out of your way to arrange some sort of interaction, anyone in the common room will just spare a nod and go on doing whatever it is they do. It’s great for easing yourself out of the whole self-isolation thing.

As sleep is proving particularly elusive this fine day, you’ve decided to leave the seclusion of your room and spend some more time reading somewhere with a comfortable chair. For once, you’ve elected to take a book that isn’t an irredeemable blot on the face of literature. It’s one of your favorites, actually.

When you walk into the common room, Strider is occupying the couch. He has his humantop set up again, but this time only the bare essentials seem to have been uncaptchalogued— it takes up a fraction of the table, as opposed to its entirety.

You give him the customary nod, getting the bare minimum of acknowledgement out of the way, and proceed curl up on opposite chair. You can hear a jaunty tune of some earth human professing they’ll do… something? Along with some incredibly strange dialogue. It’s. Whatever.

He doesn’t move during the credits, letting them roll across the screen to completion. The movie starts again, playing some _other_ jaunty tune before meandering over to an establishing shot of some strange human ritual involving a bottle and a closet. It seems vaguely similar to some party games your friends have occasionally described, but it’s not like you have any experience with them. It looks like a load of worthless unrealistic garbage, even with your lack of cultural context on either front. You turn back to your book.

You’re at your favorite part, where Floros turns to Mortia and realizes how close they were to losing one another, how lost they’d be without their rivalry to sustain them, when you recognize the same _incredibly strange_ credit sequence you heard approximately an hour and a half ago. To your surprise, it skips to the beginning. _Again_.

“Are you really going to watch that three times in a row?” You ask, interrupting the riveting dialogue of the movie for the first time since settling into your seat. Strider shrugs, and you wonder if he even processed the question. He doesn’t seem to have adjusted his position the entire time you’ve been in the room.

“Are you even watching it anymore? Could I turn it off and face no consequence aside from your continuous stare into some exclusive void with the baleful expression of a concussed woolbeast?”

Again with the shrugging.

You recaptchalogue your book, walk over, and deploy your husktop. Strider can do what he likes, but you will cast yourself into the unforgiving embrace of the horrorterrors before you sit through another round of partytime with annoying and worryingly incompetent wigglers. Besides, he seems as if he could use some external stimuli that won’t enable this unfocused stupor.

You’re usually the very pinnacle of movie-watching etiquette, but you suspend your manners for the sake of trying to keep Strider engaged. You’re not used to him being quiet for this long, and it’s kind of freaking you out. So you ask questions. Like why the hell there’s an adult in the schoolhive, and also, why is she clearly superior to any character that could have the misfortune of following her performance. But mostly, _why are there adults everywhere?_

Yes, you are familiar with the disturbing cohabitation practices of the humans, and your intensive study of a select number of human romances have furnished you with knowledge of their culture’s emphasis on adults rearing wigglers, but that doesn’t quite answer the question of why unrelated adults are charged with teaching adolescents. It would be much more efficient to schoolfeed them, or to have the human lusii teach their own offspring.

“Because sometimes our ‘human-lusii’ know a lot about some shit but nothing about other shit,” is all Strider offers.

Which just proves what a terrible system that whole mess is, but whatever, back to watching. The movie is doing an excellent job of communicating the social castes in each “high school.” The cowboys seem to share some of Aradia’s interests, and you wonder if they perform the same roles as rustbloods. But while some attributes of human society are explained clearly, there’s a lot that barrels through your puzzle sponge and comes out the other side just as indecipherable as its initial exposure. The movie is a baffling whirlwind of information, and with the added obstacle of your complete and total lack of context, you’re somewhat overwhelmed. It’s after the near-simultaneous introduction of three pale pairs that you decide, yeah, you need to bring out the calcium slate, which gets Strider’s attention.

“What the fuck are you bringing that out for?”

“It’s standard practice, Strider. How else do you expect to keep up with the myriad relationships and their developments.” You scribble out a rough phonetic approximation of each character’s name, then proceed to draw the beginnings of a grid, placing the appropriate diamonds, as well as a spade with a surprise noodle attached. He watches in continued bemusement.

“I honestly can’t tell whether this is a weird troll thing or a weird _you_ thing, but I would not be surprised either way.” You flip him off, focusing the majority of your concentration on the beautiful array of interlocking lines, the completely valid employment of ninety-degree angles for obfuscation elimination. You’re determined to streamline the unnecessarily complex social dynamics of humans. They may have rejected the objective efficiency of quadrants, but you know your shit. Quadrants make sense.

Yet more human bullshit that you have no capacity to understand unfolds, but most of the vocabulary is easy enough to grasp with enough context. Some words, however, have no close equivalent, and the scenes they pop up in offer no explanation that makes any sense.

“So, what the fuck is a misogynist?”

Strider groans. “Dude, can we not have a talk about misogyny when I’m spacing the fuck out? I’m barely aware of my existence right now, much less complex social constructs that are as dead as our collective species. Ask me later.”

You consider him for a moment before conceding that he looks like he’d have trouble finding his own respiteblock at the moment. Though honestly, he looks like that all the time. “Yeah, alright.”

However, it isn’t long before you have to comment on another glaring instance of humans having completely unreasonable response mechanisms to encountering new individuals. “You humans sure do love jumping into piles with the first person you see, don’t you?”

Strider stares at you. “Like, leaves? Or your weird troll friendship couple thing?”

“It’s called moirallegiance, Strider, and yes, I mean that.” You gesture at the screen. “Just look at those two! They’ve known each other for a day, and yet the secondary character is willing to support the scrawny lead in all of his endeav— sweet mother grub, what the fuck is going on now?”

“Looks like the dude drove over the edge of the road.”

“Yes, I can see that! I am in possession of my globular organs! But what significance does this carry in the greater scheme of the plot? His newfound moirail does not look nearly as concerned as he should.”

“Dude, I think you’re focusing more on those two than the movie ever will.”

You scowl. “Why wouldn't the movie focus on a relationship after developing its inciting incident?”

Strider shifts in his seat for what might be the first time. “Well, I mean, this is a romcom, right? Not even sure why you’re watching a human romcom, but whatever.”

“Your ectotwin recommended it to me.”

Emoting more than he has in the entire chunk of time you've shared this space, Strider recoils. “Shit. You’re chummy with Rose now? God have mercy on our poor souls.” He frowns. “Me, have mercy on our poor souls? Rose, have mercy. We’re doomed.”

“We’ll no longer be ‘chummy’ if this movie continues to progress the way it has. She appears to have mislead me about the vacillations in this film.” You squint at him. “You changed the subject.”

“From what?”

“Why can’t it focus on the moirails if this is a ‘romcom’?”

Strider waves a hand. “Well, it’s not romantic. They’re just friends, and dudes. I mean, there are movies where dudes who are friends are also romantic, but it’s not like… this,” he says. “It’s like Brokeback Mountain and shit.”

You’re getting irritated with this circuitous, incomprehensible nonsense you continue to have zero context for. “And what makes this ‘Brokeback Mountain’ different from this movie? Do pale relationships not reserve the right to become the cynosure of audiences unless someone’s spine is fractured?”

Strider drums his touchstumps against the couch. “No, it’s just some gay cowboy movie.”

You perk up at the mention of cowboys. “The human rustbloods?”

“What?”

“The ones with the tethering lariats.”

One of them chooses right then to holler on screen. A conveniently timed example.

“Oh my god,” Strider mumbles, directing his face skywards like a cluckbeast, before actually turning to address you. “I don't know why you’re always getting on my case about cultural insensitivity when you're just as bad. How hard is it to say cowboy? I know you know the word for it, you're just being stubborn.” He turns to look back at the movie. “Ah yes, Cowboys. The staple of the high school experience. Can't go ten feet without tripping over a _lasso_. Freshman year is just a whole mess of trying to reschedule cow-wrangling from period one to later in the day.”

The way he says it is enough confirmation for you to determine that he’s full of shit and so is this movie. “Glad I know cowboys are a fake earth thing that aren't real.”

“Nah man, cowboys are a real earth thing. Trust me. I’m from Texas. That’s like, cowboy central.” He pauses, like he expects you to care about what he says next. “Buckaroo.”

“What does that even mean!?”

Strider shrugs. “It’s what people say when they don’t know Spanish.”

“Can you please, for once, remember that I don’t have the time or interest to delve bulge-deep into every aspect of your alien culture? You insist on having multiple languages-”

“Yeah, we made the executive decision that destroying other cultures was a dick move. Who’d have thought?”

“Let me finish!” You cross your arms. “Everything humans do seems to be for the sheer purpose of weaving every detestable strand of your existence into a tighter and tighter knot! You try to tie all of these complex concepts and emotions together and label them one thing, and then, rather than having some easy-to-follow set of procedures, you make vague, inapplicable statements about everyone ‘dealing with things in their own way,’ as if there’s no standard or commonly accepted method! Which, according to the _same_ _assholes_ flouting that concept, is wrong! The very same movies that make these statements go on to judge the shit out of characters for dealing with situations in _apparently_ unexpected ways, so what the fuck! Why can’t you just make the standard operating procedure a fucking _standard,_ so if anyone deviates, they know what the fuck they’re doing wrong! Is that so hard!?”

Strider groans. “We can’t do that because situational whatevers are different. And different situations mean there’s gonna be different responses, my dude. It’s not that deep. I know you’d react to a spidertroll freak out way different than how you’d handle the mayor flipping his own table of emotional stability, so get off your standardized high horse. You sound like you’re about to hand me a TAKS test and a number two pencil. Fill in the circles completely, kiddos. Skip questions you don’t know and come back to them later.”

“What the fuck are you talking about now?”

“I’m saying that you should stop overthinking everything and watch the movie, Kitkat.”

“What?”

“A movie, or a ‘motion picture,’ is form of live-action media,” Strider starts, because he’s an asshole, and you cut him off because you don't need to hear that shit.

“I know what a movie is you insufferable prick!” You turn to face him, _this close_ to wringing his unjustifiably smug neck. “What’s a kitkat, and why are you calling me that?”

“Because you,” and here he pauses dramatically, teetering at the precipice of significant, life-changing wisdom, “need a break.”

You make the executive decision to ignore his nonsense and turn back to the movie.

The scene shifts to some convoluted plan that is just _rife_ with possibilities of quadrant conflict and vacillation. Could it be Scruffy Sewer-Dweller waxes caliginous for Mr. Popular? Or will his long-standing feud with Gratuitous Opinion Zone prevail? It seems that the lead female protagonist was an old flame of his, though you can't tell if it's the bitterness of a failed matespritship or the disgust of an ex-kismesissitude. You know they aren't working within the confines of the quadrant system, but it's all _right there_

All of this nuance and accidental brilliance flies over Strider’s unobservant cranial cavity. Instead, he fixated on whatever Mr. Popular draws on the universal pile machine’s face. “He just goes for it. No hesitation. What a hero. Clearly this dude is the dong-drawing champion. Be still, my beating heart.”

“You have terrible taste.”

“I can’t help it if a good ol’ dick-draw lights the fires of my passion,” Strider says. “It takes some real resolve to go straight for the face. Champion dick-depicters gape in awe at the mastery of technique displayed here.”

“Is this that thing Rose always talks about with-”

“Wow, this sure was a fun conversation up until you reminded me that my sister is brainwashing you with her Freudian horseshit. Let’s pretend the last five minutes dickn’t happen. Didn’t. Fuck.”

You roll your lookstubs, but you don’t have time to fire back because holy shit it’s not enough that Mr. Pale-for-Everyone continues to throw diamonds at anyone who moves, no, now he’s attempting some auspicticizing. He’s jumping all around the conciliatory end of the grid here. But you know what. Fine. Humans. Whatever.

You soon, however, discard that brief mindset of magnanimous acceptance.

“Wait hold on, what does having a picture of some guy have to do with romantic inclinations?”

“It’s a nineties movie, dude.”

“You continue to say these words as if I have any hope of understanding what they have to do with your bullshit social dynamics. They make about as much sense as volunteering to go for a stroll in the sun, so _do_ forgive me if I need more context.”

“It’s just a thing. In the nineties, if you liked dudes, you didn’t like girls.”

“What the fuck? What is so special about these ‘nineties’ that made the collective whole of humanity limit themselves?”

Strider groans. “I mean, people probably still did, like, date both, but no one mentioned it in movies, okay? It’s like putting a palm tree in a christmas movie. Sure, people in Cali are nodding like ‘shit dude, that sure is a tree we got there,’ but the rest of the world is wondering where the fuck their pine tree is.”

“Again, despite abandoning any hope of ever getting an actual answer, I say: what the fuck?”

“You know what? Ask me later.”

Grumbling, you add it to the growing list of human bullshit you’ve yet to receive an explanation for, but for which you’ve extracted promises of future exposition.

It takes an embarrassingly long time to realize the main romantic dynamic; you’re well into the movie when it finally hits you. At last, you understand. You're honestly a little intrigued. “This,” you announce, “is black-pale vacillation.” With a decisive nod, you make the appropriate adjustments to your grid. “Heavily butchered and an unequivocal mess, but still, a difficult dynamic to portray. Niche, too.” Pale-black vacillation, in contrast, is far too popular. This, at least, has the potential to capture your interest. If it weren’t shit, anyway.

“You did it. You solved the mystery.”

You’re about to comment on how one of the leads reminds you of Eridan in all of the worst ways, when the movie takes a turn for the dangerously incompetent.

“Who needs affection when I have blind hatred,” one of the _many other_ leads proclaims— seriously, you’re beginning to think John was being deliberately obtuse when he expressed confusion about the number of protagonists in Alternian media— and you hit pause so fast that Strider jumps.

“What the fuck, dude?”

You don’t respond. You need a couple minutes to process this.

“That’s fucked up,” you say, once those minutes pass. “He was being consistently pale for _at least_ the past three scenes, but now, _now_ he insists on perpetuating their prior pseudo-blackrom dynamic? While he’s still acting conciliatory?” You take a deep breath. “How the _fuck_ do all of these emotions happen simultaneously? Keep your puzzle sponge firmly fixed in place instead of shoving it up your chagrin tunnel, my god! This isn’t a healthy kismesissitude fueled by spite and respect, this is blatant conciliatory courting while both parties still occasionally throw in clumsy caliginous nonsense! It makes no sense!”

“I refuse to believe romcoms made any more sense on planet foursquare. Come on, there’s gotta be shit way more complicated than this.”

“But! There’s! Structure! And Motivations! If the movie’s any good at all, you know _why_ Aerosa is pale for Loamin!”

“Who the- don't answer that, I don't actually care.” Strider reaches over to resume the movie, presumably to stop your diatribe. Hilarious. Nothing can stop you when you have a point to prove. You have a fistfull of calcium slate, a mouth full of yelling, and an anguish bladder stuffed to the brim with righteous romantic indignation.

“There’s basic cause and effect! You don't build up classic pale pining only to throw it out the window for sudden concupiscent overtures that vacillate like a top spinning into the vacuum of space!”

Your yelling only increases when the characters proceed to make out while _still acting obscenely pale_.

This dross coffer of a movie is obviously irredeemable, so you spend the entire climax summarizing a much better one, stopping only to appreciate the sudden violence, before continuing your tirade. You don't think Strider’s really paying attention, but you don't really care— you haven’t had the chance to laud your favorite movies in perigees. The talk with Lalonde doesn’t count, as you barely scraped the surface of the complexities of romantic media, so this is pure, unrepentant catharsis and you are going to take full advantage of your audience, even if that audience is an unresponsive douche and the culmination of his species’ literary incompetence with zero regard to the intricacies of relationships.

Speaking of which, you need to have a talk with Lalonde. You obviously didn't draw enough diagrams the first time around if this is what she considers an example of black-red vacillation.

When the credits begin to roll, and you are once more subjected to the apparently common human phenomenon of impromptu ‘concerts’, you close the movie. That’s enough of that. Forever.

“That was fun,” Strider says, sounding almost surprised, and you have to look over to ensure he hasn’t concussed himself on the back of the couch. “We should do this again.”

“Are you being “ironic” again? Because if you are, I can tell you right now you can go-”

“Why do you always have to slap away my olive branch of peace like I’m waving around a fistful of used smuppet dildos.”

You squint at him in suspicion, but determine that not even Strider would take a joke so far as to force himself to watch a movie of this caliber twice. “I suppose I could force myself to endure your species’ floundering attempts at narrative devices, in the interest of providing some Alternian context to the uncultured shambles of your egregious insult to cinema. However, for the sake of offering a fair comparison, we should watch one of my favorite Alternian movies.”

“What, no. You chose this movie. I get to choose the next. Take a guess what it’s going to be.”

You don't have to, because he waves the DVD under your cartilage nub. It’s got the same horrendous visage you’d caught glimpses of on the humantop, back when you were enjoying quality media. It seems so long ago, the embrace shared by Floros and Mortia that shortly descended into sloppy hate makeouts, which you never got to read, because Strider sucked you into his usual vortex of meaningless shenanigans.

You slowly sink into the couch cushions, reflecting on every single repulsively execrable choice you’ve made that led you to this development of your life.

 

* * *

 

CURRENT turntechGodhead [CTG] RIGHT NOW opened memo on board fruity rumpus asshole factory.

CTG: [http://tinyurl.com/davestridersupportslove](http://68.media.tumblr.com/5ce8437480b20e75e7bc7aaa3f3efd7a/tumblr_obgs59dIwL1qfap51o1_400.gif)

CURRENT carcinoGeneticist [CCG] RIGHT NOW banned CTG from responding to the memo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [7:43:27 PM] Stella: For movie night Karkat ends up having to choose both Alternian and earth movies to watch  
> [7:43:43 PM] Stella: Because whenever it's Dave's turn he just puts in good luck chuck  
> [7:44:08 PM] Stella: Which doesn't supply appropriate comparison  
> [7:45:25 PM] Air: dave doesn’t even like good luck chuck that much  
> [7:45:45 PM] Air: he just wants to see if karkat will ever catch on  
> [7:46:21 PM] Stella: eventually good luck chuck doesn't even register as part of movie night, they just talk through it anyway without really paying attention to it  
> [7:46:59 PM] Air: good luck chuck is just  
> [7:47:01 PM] Air: talking time  
> [7:48:11 PM] Air: it’s almost like a pile  
> [7:48:21 PM] Air: good luck chuck is the abstraction of a pile  
> [7:48:34 PM] Stella: BASICALLY  
> [7:50:03 PM] Air: imagine in the new universe someone starts playing music that was on the soundtrack and like some weird pavlovian response dave and karkat start talking baout their feelings  
> [7:53:29 PM] Stella: omg


	6. Spidertroll Strongarms Herself into Relevancy (Again)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Dave Leads a Class Discussion That Proceeds to Fail Spectacularly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are determined to flesh out every relationship on this meteor, it seems.  
> \- Air
> 
> welcome to our davekat fic, in which there are davekat intermissions after extensive interpersonal drama  
> -Stella

“I said it’d be a fascinating study, not an enjoyable experience.” Lalonde doesn't look up from her book, which means she can't even see your expression of indignant outrage. And after all that time and effort you spent mixing the perfect blend, too. “I provided an example of the closest approximation to quadrant vacillation I could think of. I hope it was educational.”

“The only lesson from that travesty anyone could possibly take is that humans have shit taste in movies, which! Wait! I already knew!” You’re about to launch into the heavily supported twelve-point argument that details _every single way_ that movie failed to measure up to your standards, but before you do, you notice something. Lalonde is reading the guide, which, _good_. Maybe she’ll understand the grievous insult levied against you _as well as_ the medium of cinema at large. That isn’t what distracts you, however.

The problem is that she’s reading the guide _alone_. You did not pitch yourself through an obstacle course of emotional transparency, go through the effort of maneuvering everything so that Lalonde and Kanaya could talk about romance in the mood-setting fluorescence of rainbow drinker skin— that’s right! You know the tropes! You suffered through the trashy novels for your friend’s (and boredom’s) sake!— just for them to discard the perfect opportunity presented to them on an argentum serving plateau.

“I thought you needed Kanaya’s help to translate that?” you ask, artfully disguising your vested interest in the matter.

Lalonde’s expression takes a turn for the terse. “Oh, yes. We were making quite the study of it, too.”

“But?”

“Well,” Lalonde says, her smile tight. The way she huffs out air through her nose reminds you of Tavros’s Lusus. “Vriska decided that she was much better equipped to explain certain aspects.”

As always, your best laid plans are nothing in the destructive path of Vriska fucking Serket.

You drag your hand down your face. “Please tell me that Serket _did not_ insert herself between you two like the most unnecessary, oblivious, shit-eating minstrel in all of asshole court, singing her songs to nobody who gives a fuck. Her meddling is borderline ashen, if you define auspisticism using only the _trashiest satire_ to ever disgrace the shelves of my respiteblock.”

“It certainly appears to be her usual modus operandi.”

You nod in agreement over Lalonde’s prime fucking assessment. She’s usually so open to Serket’s interference that it’s unnerving— it’s hard to imagine anyone with functional gander bulbs would just accept that special brand of awful, but Vriska’s everywhere, constantly, and everyone just goes with it! If you thought she was insufferable during your session, it’s nothing compared to how she acts post “retcon.” Perhaps this is a welcome bungle, if it means a temporary ally in the war against spidertroll being allowed to do whatever the fuck she wants. Awesome.

Then you remember Kanaya, and how much she seems to like Lalonde, and you feel like a jackass. Fucking damn it.

“That still doesn’t answer why you’ve decided to do self-study when you can’t read Alternian,” you say, instead of stirring up shit over Serket.

Lalonde keeps her glance nuggets trained on the book. “I already know the contents of this passage, and am making a study of its vocabulary.”

“And you’re making things exponentially more difficult for yourself, why?” Just _ask Kanaya for help,_ you _obtuse orange oracle_.

“Believe it or not, my personal business isn’t open source for the perusal of the masses.”

“That’s rich, coming from someone who‘s sole purpose in life is basically to maneuver everyone’s personal business. Yesterday you told me to wait five minutes before using the load gaper.”

“And you told me, ‘I don’t need your fortune majyks dictating when I’m allowed to shit,’ before immediately charging headfirst into a wall.”

“Fine! As always, we remain in the shadow of ignorance, awaiting by the grace of our divine leaders who _shine_ in the radiance of their aspect to bequeath unto us the barest crumbs of knowledge.”

“Spare me the dramatics, Karkat,” Lalonde says, flicking her gaze over to you for a moment. “If you actually took issue with me, you’d be avoiding me with as much dedication as you do Vriska.”

You freeze. “You can’t prove I’m avoiding Vriska.”

“How so?”

“We’re in the same block every time you see us together.”

Lalonde puts down her book and cradles her head in her prongs, which you’re going to chalk up as a win.

You try to use the opportunity to escape, but Lalonde is a wily tactician. She sticks her leg out, and you’re sent tumbling to the floor in a graceless display of your usual ineptitude.

“Is this about Terezi?” She asks, because apparently the humans cannot conceive of a world where your emotions don’t revolve around Terezi, holy shit.

You sit up for the sole purpose of being able to glare at her. “No, it’s about Serket being a virulent plague that’s determined to infect each and every one of us with an _exceptional_ amount of irritated resignation to her enigmatic scheming, enough that we’re content to make floral chaplets and sing jocular songs about cooperation around a pyre while she does whatever the fuck she likes.”

“But I can’t imagine her close relationship with Terezi bears no influence.”

“What do you want me to say, Lalonde? No matter what I tell you, no matter how juicy the tidbit about the inner turmoil of my psyche, you’re just going to go straight back to the deeper significance of how I feel now that Terezi and Vriska are joined at the hip, whereas I’m lucky if she even spares me a second sniff.” You get to your feet, brushing yourself off. Someone needs to clean the common room, or at least alchemize any sort of vacuum aside from the cold void of space.

“I don’t know if you’re running reconnaissance to check if I’m going to ruin all your plans by making some attempt at some personal closure, or if this is just some absurd form of entertainment here at spacerock central! How about I just spout off every conceivable opinion I could possibly have and you just stop me when you hear what you want to hone in on! Let’s start with how I find Vriska’s pointless, vacuous theatrics an embarrassment to anyone with a functional think pan! Or how I don’t trust the altruism of her motives for a single fucking second! And wouldn’t it be _incredible_ if anyone acknowledged that she was responsible for—”

“Always nice to meet a fan of my work.”

You are just about ready to reach into your orbital cavities and claw out any organic matter you can reach.

“Hello, Vriska,” you say, standing abruptly. “Goodbye, Vriska,” you say, marching straight to the transportalizer. Instead, you march straight into Dave fucking Strider.

“Whoa, did someone send out an e-vite to a meeting without making sure the mailing list was up to date? How are we supposed to be an unparalleled organizational force when Barbara’s birthday comes around? Who’s gonna make the arrangements for the company potluck? The communal birthday card?”

“Get out of the way, Strider.”

“And what, lose the model of intersocial prowess? Karkat, please. We couldn’t get anything done without you. Who else is going to order the fruit baskets.” He shakes his head. “Rose doesn’t even know what’s in season, and— oh shit, it’s spidertroll.”

“Strider, if you didn’t know I was here, you wouldn’t have made the meeting joke,” Vriska says.

“I’ll have you know that I am very dedicated to making fun of how antisocial we are as a group. It’s my lifeblood, and if you take it from me, I will effectively die a heroic death, leaving you all to face the rest of this timeline on your lonesome. I could’ve had no clue that you were here. What’s to say I wasn’t making fun of Karkat and Rose hanging out, as is my civic duty appointed by the mayor himself.”

“The mayor isn’t diabolical enough to give you that much power,” Lalonde counters.

“He’s willing to make several political sacrifices for the greater good, Rose. These are dark times indeed for the people of Cantown. Children are crying. Storm’s a comin’. Make sure to board up the cellar, Auntie Em.”

“And aren’t we so glad you’re handling that while the rest of us work on real issues,” Vriska says, rolling her glance nuggets.

“Oh yeah, how could any of us possibly forget! You’re on a one-troll mission to single-handedly save the alpha timeline. Your dazzling competence in the otherwise barren, lightless murk of the void ahead is absolutely blinding. But I guess I can’t say that, since I wasn’t the troll you blinded.”

“Wow, way to drag out old drama. Newsflash! You’re literally the only one who cares about that junk. Terezi’s over it, I’m over it, and guess what! Even Aradia beat the shit out of me, then moved the fuck on. You’re the only one hung up on it.”

“I’m sure Tavros would have something to say, _if he were alive_.”

“I’m taking care of that.”

“How the fuck are you— you know what, sure you are! Because you take care of everything, don’t you?”

“Yes! I do!” Vriska fires back. “And if you don’t like it _too bad_ , because I get results! Everything that I’ve done has been for the greater good of the timeline, so you’re stuck with me. Maybe if _you_ were half as competent as _you_ always claimed to be, maybe I wouldn’t _have_ to be alive, and maybe, just maybe, Terezi wouldn’t have had to clean after the mess you left behind in _your_ disastrous excuse of a timeline! Wouldn't you just _love_ to hear what she’s been saying behind your back?”

Terezi Pyrope! Terezi Pyrope! Why does everyone bring it back to Terezi fucking Pyrope like you’ll descend into frothing conniptions at the mere mention of her name! Way to flay the decomposing hoofbeast! And the worst thing is! As much as you don’t want to admit it! The hoofbeast actually is alive and kicking. No, that’s not the worst thing. The worst thing is that Terezi Pyrope is a single hair on that hoofbeast of personal failure, and everyone’s acting as if she’s the entire animal in some twisted sense of synecdoche. You failed to keep your asshole friends around by getting them killed, or by self-imposed isolation, or by doing whatever the fuck you did to piss Terezi off so badly that she can’t stand to breathe the same air occupied by your abhorrent existence. But no. It's always your feelings about Terezi fucking Pyrope. There’s the fucking hoofbeast.

“Alright, I still don’t know the context of anything because you guys are as secretive as a couple of FBI agents trying to disguise the fact that they blew their budget at Denny’s after a particularly bad break up, but even I can tell you crossed a line there. So.” Dave is still blocking the transportalizer, but he shifts a bit— if you really needed to, you could probably barrel through him to the sanctuary of your room. It’s that escape route that gives you the resolve to stick around. A paradox worthy of fucking Paradox Space, you guess.

Vriska isn’t looking at you, and you refuse to look at her. It’s just tense, brittle silence, and it’s one that you refuse to break. Dave sighs.

“Well. You’ve done it. You’ve pushed me, Dave fucking Strider, into the role of Mature Adult. So. Rose, I’m tagging you in.”

“You seem to be doing an exemplary job; I think I’ll sit this one out.”

“Well you were entirely useless,” Dave says. Lalonde flips him off, which he ignores in favor of addressing both you and the most deplorable waste of sentience you’ve had the displeasure of associating with. “Alright. Here we go. We’re doing this history debate style, hopefully without the one kid who always ends up crying because he found out that state’s rights aren’t what his grandma told him they were. Each of you gets two minutes to give your opening statements, then five minutes to tell each other why you’re right or wrong, then two minutes to feel really uncomfortable and bring this to some kind of conclusion so we can all wander off and pretend like this never happened.”

“Great, I’ll start!” Vriska says.  “Karkat, you useless fucking wiggler—”

Dave brings his touch stubs to his mouth and whistles. It takes him some time to go from spitting on his prong to actual sound production. “Time out, time out; that’s not how this is going to go. Vriska. What did you do wrong?”

“What!?”

“I’ll help by listing the first thing: you swore in class, which isn’t allowed.”

“This isn’t actually your human schoolhive, Dave! And it’s not like Karkat won’t swear!”

“We’ll address that when it’s his turn. For now: what did you do wrong?”

“I called Karkat a fucking wiggler because _he’s acting like a fucking wiggler.”_

“We are on a democratic meteor, here—”

“I’ve never actually seen us hold a successful vote,” Lalonde interjects.

“The point is,” Dave says, flipping Lalonde off, “no ad hominem, and you are _not_ going to use your minutes to throw shitfits about how shitty you think the other person’s personality is. This isn’t the youtube comments section. We are going to have a respectful fucking class discussion if it kills us. Except Karkat, who doesn’t have godtier resurrection powers.”

“Thanks for the fucking reminder.”

“Alright! Alright. Fine,” Vriska says. “I’ll be ‘respectful’.”  She then proceeds to waste one of her minutes glaring at you before slouching in her seat and letting out the most overwrought sigh you’ve heard outside of ostentatious, contrived histrionics. “You're definitely not appreciating the fact that I’m actually pulling my weight on this rock. Who’s weaponizing every scrap of information Rose and Terezi pull our way? I am! It’s not like my “dazzling competence” is some fake make-believe bullshit I’m pulling out of my ass. I’m doing everything I can to ensure our victory, and it’s hard enough without you fighting me every step of the way! You’re so hung up on past bullshit when everyone’s moved on ages ago.”

Well. Now it’s your turn.

There’s a part of you, shriveled and languishing in the throes of death, that might, under heavy duress and extreme torture, admit that Serket actually is a valuable asset to the team. In terms of objective practicality. But, she’s also a manipulative, vindictive _pustule_ on the grease-covered face of existence who’s _convinced_ she’s the _only one_ capable of _any_ action with _any_ degree of purpose amounting to a significance beyond taking a dump off the side of the meteor. And she smells bad.

The most frustrating thing about this whole situation is that you know Terezi’s reached this realization well before your actual session due to some extensive drama you refused to involve yourself in. What you don’t know is what caused her to launch into breakneck rotation, to suddenly resume scourge sister antics while putting you into that previously occupied quarantine zone, which means! Everyone’s right! In some convoluted, ironic way, everything does a mobius strip to end and begin with Terezi fucking Pyrope.

You open your mouth, and you can feel the frustration build in your throat, as dense and unmanageable as if you’d swallowed an entire bag of grubloaf in one go, plastic and all.

“Listen, Vriska. I recognize that you’re the _sole reason_ this timeline isn’t collapsing into a black hole of predestined carnage. I get it. No fact is burnt into the recesses of my skull with greater clarity. I am, however, tired of acting like _every single action_ has the _exact same weight_ on the scale of cosmic significance. It sure would be great to bask in the glory of my own personal tantrum without five different interventions set in place to ensure I’m not going to jeopardize every fuck—”

“Karkat.”

“ _Freaking_ victory we’ve scraped ourselves towards, okay? I don’t need you and Lalonde acting like the Light Lusii brigade, waiting to swoop in and save Karkat from dooming us all again! The fact that _you_ can emerge from the cocoon of traumatic calamity like Pupa fucking Pan doesn't mean I can't take the time to process the absolute festering pile of shit we’ve all been forcibly enmired in! And said processing would be _a lot easier_ without your constant attempts to shove your touch stumps in the proverbial pies of everyone else’s personal business. Not everyone can be a remorseless—”

Dave covers your mouth. “Time's up. Back to you, spidertroll.”

“Remorseless? _Remorseless_? I’m working this hard _precisely_ because there are things I regret! And unlike you, I can actually reflect on my mistakes in a constructive manner instead of flailing around like a screeching—”

“Yeah, screeching doesn’t sound like it’s heading anywhere good. Reign it in,” Dave says.

Vriska crosses her arms, huffing. “I shouldn’t have killed Tavros. I get that. Turns out he was actually right for once! I finally pushed him to the point where he almost reached the _bare_ _minimum_ of his potential, and it turns out I’ve undercut all my hard work. If he succeeded, he would’ve briefly saved everyone from getting killed, and for that brief second, it would've been the right thing to do. Before whatever else is supposed to doom them in that session ends up killing them all. But I actually do have a plan that will completely make up for it, and that’ll get us to the new session without anyone being completely wiped from existence.”

Well, doesn’t stop her from being utterly vile, but at least you know she can express some roundabout form of self-centered regret, and that this entire plan isn’t entirely her manipulating her way into being The Most Important. It may still be more than eight parts about her incessant need to barrel headfirst into the figurative spotlight, but at least her shoddy facsimile of a pump biscuit’s adjacent to the right place.

But also.

“Wow, great job admitting that you might’ve _almost_ made a mistake by killing someone! Guess what! That _still_ doesn't mean you can go around acting like the mother grub’s altruistic gift to Paradox Space because _you’ve_ decided you’ve done enough! Also, sticking your cartilaginous nub where it doesn’t belong while _constantly_ provoking, dismissing, and steamrolling over other people’s feelings is a pretty shit way of compensating for your failure to read a situation you engineered yourself!“

“What do you want me to say? That I'm _sorry_?”

“Yes! That is exactly what I want you to say! Would it kill you to actually vomit up some pathetic attempt at an apology without acting like you’re entitled to instant forgiveness? Wait, maybe that’s what happened in the original timeline! Mystery fucking solved!”

“Okay, so I’m beginning to think that maybe trolls and class discussions don’t mix,” Dave says.

Lalonde quirks an infuriating eyebrow over the cover of her book. “What could have possibly given you that idea?”

“I’m making things square,” Vriska seethes, “so I don’t see what the problem is if I don’t bother with spewing some meaningless platitudes!”

“‘Being square’ isn’t the same as taking accountability for your detestable, morally-bankrupt bullshit! You can’t just expect everyone to forgive you when you don’t even make _an attempt_ at admitting you were wrong in _any_ meaningful capacity! Forgiveness does not end and begin at the intersection of Vriska and Serket!”

“Yeah, Cantown’s infrastructure wouldn’t accommodate that,” Dave says. “That aside, this debate thing’s not really working anymore, so I vote for a time-out.”

“It’s a good thing I don’t need your forgiveness then! Like hell you’ve got any valid grievance against me!”

“Just because I haven't been killed or otherwise _horrifically maimed_ by you doesn't mean I can't take _perfectly valid objection_ to your bullshit! You can't keep treating people like they’re your own personal playthings! It might’ve worked for your insipidly juvenile larping sprees, but we can’t afford for you to—”

“Oh, hey, Terezi.”

That shuts you both up, and you turn to the transportalizer in tandem. A bewildered Kanaya stares back at you.

“Dave, I do not in any way resemble Terezi,” she says. “I could make an attempt to emulate that strange surprise noodle face that she is so fond of, if needed, but a reason to do so would have to be provided.”

“Whoops. My bad. I totally goofed up there,” Dave says, as if he didn’t obviously orchestrate the scenario. “Anyway. We gonna keep this civil, or..?”

Vriska scowls and charges up to the transportalizer, brushing Kanaya out of the way. A moment later, and she’s gone. Thank whatever horrorterrors chose to bestow their repugnant blessings onto you.

Dave takes a few seconds to consider the situation. “That was exhausting. I’m out.” He follows Vriska’s departure, somehow managing to avoid her level of needless dramatics despite literally wearing a cape.

There’s another few seconds of silence, until it’s finally determined that the remaining members of the Common Room Corral are safe from anyone else fucking off into the abyss.

“Well, that was a suitably awkward and baffling situation that has left me feeling both unnerved and embarrassed,” Kanaya says. “I find myself with the conflicting desires of wanting to throw myself into pursuits that have the enviable quality of being elsewhere and not here, or to intervene before the meteor wanes into yet another phase of its senseless brutality cycle.” She shakes her head. “Karkat, could you explain what just happened? The illusion of anything making sense is rapidly disintegrating, and I would like to preserve what little remains for as long as possible.”

You cross your arms and look away, like a sullen wiggler.

“Karkat.”

“Vriska’s being a controlling, egotistical despot who refuses to listen to anyone else, or to apologize when her plans begin their inevitable descent into a fetid, seeping morass of manipulation and gore.”

Kanaya closes her eyes. “And how is this any different from how she has acted thus far?”

Your slouch intensifies. “It’s not.” You bristle at her sigh. “That doesn’t mean she can keep getting away with it!”

“Karkat, I have long since realized that any and all attempts to curb Vriska’s impulses will only result in a useless expenditure of energy. She repeatedly makes the decision to fill her own recuperacoon, then to gleefully kick everyone into it at her own discretion. While I do not approve, I have learnt that there is very little I or anyone can do to dissuade her.”

It hits you like a thresher that Kanaya had to learn that the hard way, and you feel like a huge tool for forgetting about her feelings _again_. You’re the worst friend. It’s you.

“Kanaya, I—” She holds up a prong to stop you.

“By all means, continue to scream and flail and contest her antics, as I believe doing so gives you no small amount of satisfaction. Not to mention the role it plays in forcing Vriska to consider her plans from angles previously overlooked. However, I do not think that you should continue to pin your hopes on changing Vriska’s behavior for the better. That is something only Vriska can do.”

You open and close your mouth like a concussed fish for a moment, then sigh. “When is it my turn to impart monumentally significant wisdom?”

Kanaya brings a prong to her mouth, hiding a smile. “Believe it or not, talking through things does assist my own understanding. I do enjoy some benefits of lecturing you, Karkat. If I do enmire myself in some emotional trench, however, I trust that you will yell loudly enough from any given precipice until I am able to navigate my way out of it. Mind you, if you start avoiding me again we will most certainly have words that will be far less gentle and understanding.” She shoots you the sternest glare she has in her arsenal, which is frankly eighty times more intimidating than Serket could ever hope to be.

Lalonde looks far too amused for her own good. You’re sure she knows exactly what it feels like to be the object of Maryam’s patented Affectionate Disapproval, and that she’s enjoying every second of watching it from the outside.

“Believe it or not, I'm capable of acting like I don’t spend the majority of my life camped out in my own shitpipe.” You shove your prongs in your pockets. “And I’ve missed you, too.”

Kanaya ruffles your hair, and you roll your glance nuggets. “In that case, I think it is time that we schedule in some time for comparative literature analysis.”

You groan. “Not the—”

“No, Karkat, not the rainbow drinker ‘trash,’ as you so affectionately refer to my novels. I find that they have lost a certain appeal, although I am not above the occasional indulgence.”

You try not to look too eager, and probably fail as spectacularly as you do at everything else. “In that case, I suppose I could schedule in some time to discuss the relative merits of our reading material.”

Kanaya beams. Quite fucking literally. You’re too nocturnal for her sudden radiance, and you have to cover your eyes. “Kanaya, can you tone it down a little?”

“Oh, yes, I am in perfect control of this glow, and in fact enjoy maintaining this intensity.” She pauses. “I employed human sarcasm just now, but I feel it is not as effective as when the humans do it.”

“Feel free to delegate the sarcasm to us at any time, Kanaya,” Lalonde suggests. “We’re too happy to help, having developed it as a defense mechanism on par with your serrated incisors.”

“Or! We could not have the human sarcasm at all! Considering none of us act like perpetually belligerent toolbags who run around baring our teeth at everyone!”

“Karkat, correct me if I’m wrong, but that is an essential component of every action you take.”

“I have an overbite, okay! The teeth baring is incidental!”

To her credit, Lalonde does look a bit penitent at this shocking revelation. “In that case, I apologize. My mistake.”

Kanaya, being the only one with tact in the fucking block (and probably the entire meteor), clears her windhole. “Anyhow, I originally intended to collect Rose so that we could continue our collaboration on the sketches for prototypes I have been working on in my free time— which is the vast majority of time spent here, really. Rose, if you would still be amenable?”

Lalonde finally captchalogues her guide, dispensing the farce that she had spent a single moment studying it since the second you stepped into the rumpusblock. “Of course, Kanaya.”

“I’ll find you later, Karkat. I look forward to hearing your thoughts concerning some of the novels I have read as of late.”

“You mean you find it entertaining when I call the authors self-obsessed fetishists with nothing better to do than pander to their own self-perpetuating tastes like a never-ending ouroboros of terrible two-caegar paperbacks.”

“That sums it up quite succinctly,” Kanaya says, smiling.

“Good, because I have several fully-formed diatribes memorized regarding the worst of the novels I managed to save.”

“I’m looking forward to it.” Kanaya bids you goodbye as she takes her leave, Rose following soon after.

And once again, you’re alone.

 

* * *

 

The next time you see Dave is only a short while later, when you make your way over to Cantown to pay your daily dues to society.

The Mayor places a half used stick of blue chalk in your hand and points to the new water treatment facility. It lacks any and all representations of water, so you guess that’s where you come in.

Dave, meanwhile, appears to making a variety of signs.

You look down at the chalk, stare longingly at the water treatment facility, and then remember Kanaya’s disappointed face. You sigh and concede defeat. There’s no better time to bite the proverbial projectile than never in a million sweeps, but you guess now works as a close second.

“Sorry you had to mediate between me and spidertroll. And, thanks.” You shift your weight like a wiggler caught sneaking high-fructose grubsauce. “You didn’t have to get yourself involved like that.”

“I’d say don’t even worry about it, but I don’t know what there is to worry about. After seeing that complete shitfest of a fallout, I still don’t know the context of whatever hydrogen bomb of repressed emotion decided to detonate. Seriously, nuclear shelters can’t protect shit in the face of that explosion. Sorry, Jimmy, duck and cover won’t help you here. Forget any cold wars, we’re running this shit hotter than the sixth circle of hell.”

You groan. “That’s why you’re getting the thanks, so just take my gratitude you prying nookchafer.”

“I guess if that’s what it takes for me to get a break from— wait. Wait. Hold on a second.” You can tell that he’s staring at you pretty intently, which is impressive considering he still hasn’t removed his fucking shades. When did you obtain a loose grasp on the ability to interpret the unfathomable language of Dave Strider’s kinesics? “I didn’t just land myself into the cockblock couple quadrant, did I? Are we troll threesome married? To spidertroll? Because I do not hold my fucking peace, and I will object all the way up and down that altar.”

Never mind. He remains an obnoxious enigma. “Why is it that the second I find myself considering you anything other than an ignorant shitstain on the soiled fabric of humanity, you go and fit yourself neatly back into the asshole box like some capricious, self-sabotaging cat.”

“Shit, man, it’s a legit concern. I— wait, like a what now?”

You clutch your chest in the most profound display of delicate shock you can muster. “I’m sorry, do you not know what a cat is? Allow me to enlighten you—”

“I know what a cat is; I’m just surprised you’re not calling it a meowbeast, or a fluffcreature, or some shit like that.”

You know what, fine. This conversation was already ridiculous enough, and now that it’s been completely derailed by semantic non sequiturs, you guess it’s just time to put out your entire life story, which is much better than having to subject yourself to a discussion regarding Dave’s surprising ashen aptitude and any conciliatory feelings that definitely don’t exist. “Once upon a time I was produced through a series of ectobiological bumbling. Shocking as it might be to learn this crucial, confidential information, there’s something you need to know about me. I actually had a social life. I’m sure this revelation is like a vice on your anguish bladder! One of the side effects of interacting with people is— surprise! Picking up their ridiculous slang.”

“You’re talking about the cat troll right? I never did talk to her.” He fiddles with his chalk, tapping it incessantly against his work in progress. “Were you friends?”

You’re ready to shoot back ‘take a fucking guess, asshole, and keep it to yourself because it’s still none of your fucking business,’ but whatever. You wanted to get out of the habit of isolating yourself, and you guess this functions as some approximation of honing your atrophied interpersonal skills. “It’s always a complicated answer when it comes to trolls. But. We were definitely on better terms compared to some of the others in our group.” That’s not really saying much, considering everyone’s respective personalities. “She had a crush on me, so it was always a little awkward.” Not to mention you handled it with the grace and aplomb typical of your every action, which is to say you flailed around, yelled a lot, and generally acted like a tool.

You shrug. “She was nice. Much nicer than a troll had any business being, but she also eviscerated a variety of beasts on a daily basis. She was strong enough to be weird, I guess. Plus she was moirails with the biggest blueblood asshole this side of Paradox Space.”

“That’s the sweaty one, right? We’ve talked once. It was...” You can only imagine that, under those shades, Dave is most definitely making the same face that everyone makes after encountering the description-resistant individual that is Equius.

“He’s a huge douche, but I got him killed. So. If you look at it from the perspective of a gigantic festering asshole, I guess that makes us even.”

And with that, you herald in an atmosphere heavy enough to crush both of you into the cement floor, effectively suffocating the conversation to death.

Or that would be the case if your conversational partner wasn’t Dave fucking Strider, a being incapable of reading the mood if it were explicitly written in seventy-two point font.

“If it’s any consolation, Terezi’s been avoiding me too.”

You’re too caught off guard to even register being pissed that, yet again, everything revolves around Terezi Pyrope. Has Dave even heard of conversational transitions? And also, not spouting blatantly false bullshit?

“What? No, you guys worked on Cantown.”

“Yeah, for the first week.” He adjusts the way his shades sit on the divot of his cartilaginous nub. “When I said she passed the baton of municipal responsibility so she could prance off with spidertroll, I wasn’t exaggerating. I know hyperbole is like my thing— your thing too, really— but she literally hasn’t been here in weeks. It bummed the mayor the fuck out, honestly. Poor guy.” He shakes his head.

You crane your head to look over Dave’s shoulder at the carapacian in question. The mayor continues to bustle about his business, not looking especially concerned with your conversation. He notices you looking and waves, dropping a can in the process. He chases after it, chirping in distress.

“After that, she stopped talking to me,” Dave says. “I’m not letting myself get too down about it though, ‘cause I think she’s psyching herself out over the alpha timeline stuff.” He tosses the chalk from one prong to the other. “There’s obviously something about that biz that’s fucking her up, and I’d be a major hypocrite if I went around preaching open communication and sharing being caring, et cetera, so.” He shrugs. “Honestly, I’m just waiting to see if she actually talks to me again ever. And if she doesn’t, that’s her decision to make. Sure, it kinda sucks, even though I wasn’t as close as you two used to be, but. It’s not just a you thing.”

It actually is a relief, albeit a very small, very selfish one. At least you’re not alone on the barren, frozen expanse of Radio Silence Island, right off the cold shoulder of Aloof Coast.

“Pass me the glitter, will you?” Dave asks, interrupting your thoughts. “I need to make sure Lalonde Lane lives up to its namesake.”

“How is covering something in glitter making it anything like Lalonde?” You ask, handing it over despite your artistic reservations.

“Have you seen Kanaya and Rose in the same room.”

Well. You can’t argue that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [4/23/16, 9:36:46 PM] Air: i can’t believe we wrote a Vriska quarantine thread  
> [4/23/16, 9:37:04 PM] Stella: s I G H  
> [4/23/16, 9:37:15 PM] Stella: vriska quarantine chapter


	7. Sanguine Disposition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Pointy Objects are Proven to Be Objectively Pointless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please read responsibly and take breaks if necessary, friends.  
> -Air
> 
> I've been looking forward to this  
> -Stella

Infuriating drama aside, life really has settled into some facsimile of mundane day-to-day existence. There’s basically no danger on the meteor unless you count the possibility of lighting yourself on fire, which is always an option. Self-immolation is the only reprieve at your disposal until the sweep (plus a few perigees) is up. There’s also the alternative of launching yourself into the vacuum of space to escape the endless stream of bullshit constantly leaking from every open orifice on troll and human alike, but then again, you’d probably dive straight into a dream bubble, and wouldn't that be embarrassing. They seem to be popping up in the distance with greater frequency the longer you’re trapped on the Imperial Starship Hell-Rock. Fortunately, the ship hasn’t barreled into any since the start of the trip.

Of course, because the concept of an enduring security of existence is unrealistic to the point of absurdity, that changes, and you have the pleasure of experiencing that shift with your usual luck and aplomb.

You’re in the common room when it happens— there’s a shift in the air, and while you don't feel any physical impact, you know _something’s_ happening. The transition isn’t so much jarring as it is sudden; you're trying to pinpoint the odd familiarity of it when grass inexplicably sprouts from the formerly barren expanse of the tiled floor.

“What the _fuck_ ,” you announce to the empty room. You drop your book in your haste to scramble into some upright position, especially after the abrupt appearance of… is that Aradia’s hive? In the common room? What the fuck? After a brief investigation you determine that it is, in fact, Aradia’s hive, and with that settled you bend over to recaptchalogue your book. You might be in some deep, freaky shit, but like hell you’ll abandon one of your few remaining favorite novels.

When you look up again, the room has expanded. Scratch that; the room is fucking gone. Any comfort that the sweet embrace of finite, concrete walls could have offered is lost to you, replaced by a bewildering array of crystalline protrusions that stretch into an impetuous horizon.

Everything is awash with an opalescent glow that throbs and pulses through a blinding spectrum of blues and purples. The longer you stare at it, the more it pisses you off. This superfluous sparklegem bullshit is exactly why you barely saw Aradia’s land except from the other side of a viewport. Honestly, everyone's land was a different shade of terrible spanning the sliding scale of egregious aesthetics. The entire scale being from ‘bad’ to ‘also bad.’

Aradia, being either dead or a robot the entire time she was forced to occupy the ocular hazard of her land, didn’t have the opportunity to appreciate just how hostile it was to anyone with the misfortune of exposure. Fortunately, you’re willing to pick up the slack.

 _Fuck_ that's bright.

You know what, maybe it’s time to pass the baton of your vitally important onus to some other sap. You don't know how far into the meteor this dream bubble has gotten, but at least you can deal with pants-shitting uncertainty and confusion in the comfort and privacy of your own room. Unless the dream bubble decides to make your room asshole rumpus partytime, in which case, fuck.

Of course, of fucking course, the next step you take coincides with the advent of a quartz shard that’s uniquely suited to the task of kicking your ass, considering how sharp and primed for _stabbing you in the fucking arm_ it is, and fuck fuck _fuck_ you’re bleeding.

The thing about blood powers, aside from being dramatically ironic and badass only in theory, is that you're pretty sure you have an abundance of blood, which means you can't bleed out, so that’s fantastic, except for the fact that it takes one small cut and suddenly the sluices are opened and a deluge of crimson is unleashed. Unless that's just a side effect of your mutation. Either way, it’s bullshit and terrible and not that conducive to _staying the fuck alive_.

You sprint towards the transportalizer (which has thankfully yet to be blocked off by more fucking quartz but is also _a lot fucking farther_ ), trying to quell your bubbling panic. It’s fine. It’s fine! Nobody on the meteor gives half a shit about the hemospectrum! In fact, half the residents have red fucking blood! Look at you, being completely rational, except, wait, you’re not really on the meteor. You’re not on the meteor, you’re in a dream bubble, and you run into everyone in these damned things because it’s an open-ended afterlife, and your luck is always terrible enough that you run into the worst possible people at the worst possible times and you’re fucked, you’re absolutely fucked.

Who even knows how many people could be spending their afterlife in this bubble, who they are, how close they were to the you of their timeline, if they even _know they’re fucking dead!_ Some Equius could be hanging around because it’s Aradia’s land after all, or maybe even a Gamzee, you haven’t seen one so far but now would be the _perfect time_ for a Gamzee to show up, and didn't Gamzee’s whole _thing_ revolve around inheriting his rightful place on the hemospectrum, a place that involves culling unsavory blights on the face of the empire, and what are you if not the absolute epitome of just that, and oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh _fuck_.

You’re basically about to erupt into a full-on fit of panic ( _again_ ) when you finally manage to stumble onto the transportalizer, but instead of collapsing onto the metallic pad, you crash right into Dave.

“Whoa there, Karkat, we’ve got to stop meeting like this. I know I'm irresistible, but get ahold of yourself. You can’t go breaking the third date rule, that’s just not—”

Before he can get too enmired in his usual figurative language-induced stupor, he stops mid-sentence, letting the rest of his air hiss out like a deflated balloon.

“Oh. Shit,” he says. “Um. You're bleeding. I mean, you're probably aware of that, but. Just putting it out there. Are you alright? I mean, no, obviously not because you're bleeding and that sure is a lot of blood, you’re, uh, practically ol’ faithful right now holy shit—”

“Dave!”

He jolts out of whatever daze he’s floundered into, and there's an audible click as he snaps his jaw shut.

“It’s not a big deal, I just need,” you breathe, trying to stave off a repeat of the last time you utterly flipped your shit, “I need to be somewhere else, somewhere private. I can't— I can't let anyone see—”

You don't know when your prongs had found their way to him but you clutch desperately at his arms, and the strain of your muscles makes the wound widen and throb, which makes the flow of blood even worse, and you can’t get enough air to your lungs, there just isn’t enough, you can't explain why you're so worked up because honestly, this is a shallow cut, and yet, your tracheal tube’s clogged up and tight, your blood pusher's beating fast, too fast, which is making the bleeding worse, which is making the panic worse, and _it never ends_ , and you're freaking out like your death is a foregone conclusion.

Luckily, you don’t have to explain shit. Dave takes your hand and leads you right back towards the transportalizer, flipping his cape so it covers you. It’s weird and _ridiculously_ conspicuous— if anyone saw you walking down the hall, they’d think the two of you decided to collaborate on the shittiest ad hoc hoofbeast costume ever created— but it does the job of at least partially concealing the obscene amount of red leaking out of you, and for some reason there’s a comfort you take from being wrapped in his cape. When you inhale, some foreign scent chases away a bit of whatever’s blocking your throat. You tighten your grip on the cloth.

By the time the two of you zap into his respiteblock, you’ve safely boarded the rail transport right out of the Freakout Zone and you’ve started the slow approach to Stability Central. It may be a while before you actually reach your stop, but you’re far enough along to notice that Dave hasn't been joining you on that particular journey. There’s a notable pallor to his face, and he can't seem to keep his hands still— not to mention the way he’s muttering under his breath. You didn't notice while you were preoccupied with your inevitable and untimely demise, but there’s a constant undercurrent of babble Dave seems to have been spewing for a while. You can't even make out any words, but the intonation and rhythm of it feels off. As if he can sense your attention, he abruptly turns to address you.

“Well, I’m going to get a first aid kit, so like, you aren't gonna. Die or anything, right? Because you have _not_ stopped bleeding and I don't think I could deal with coming back to a room full of corpse.”

Now isn't that a nostalgic concern. “I’m fine, I’ve been stabbed with worse.” You’re the most reassuring troll in the universe. It’s you. “I just need some bandages or something.”

“Right, bandages. Band-aids. You’ll be stuck on Band-Aid brand ‘cause Band-Aid’s stuck on you.” He doesn't seem to be talking to anybody in particular since he’s already poised to leave his block, and by the time he actually zaps out he’s already in the middle of another sentence. You settle down on the floor, leaning back against some weird cushioned platform, and try to keep an even pressure on the cut.

When Dave returns he’s apparently decided to invert his behavior; it seems he’s devoting every scrap of his energy to being as freakishly quiet as possible. He passes you the kit without a word, not even some convoluted pop culture reference no one can understand. You bandage yourself in silence, though Dave does helps you tie the knot— you can’t get it to lie with enough pressure when you only have one prong at your disposal. But even with this evidence of coherent thought, he’s still acting somewhat. Strange.

“Alright,” he says, finally breaking his apparent vow of silence. “That’s one good knot if I do say so myself. Tighter than White House security after Nic Cage kidnapped the president. Please don’t tell John I made that reference. Or do, if you have a way to contact him. Which none of us do, so yeah. Doesn’t matter. Anyway, you alright?”

You consider taking the delicate approach before deciding, fuck it. “I’m fine. I’ve been fine for a while now. Are _you_ alright?”

“Shit man, I wasn't the one single-handedly recreating the first plague sans water.” Dave fiddles with the excess bandages, wrapping and unwrapping the ends around his fingers. “Honestly I thought your blood was grey.”

“Who the fuck ever heard of grey blood? That’s the most biologically improbable bullshit that’s ever come out of your mouth. Then again, I guess I shouldn't expect anything less from a species that starts life without some form of hatching.”

“I thought that’s what you trolls did. Type in your weird technicolor blood, like some last-ditch effort to revive the seventies. Pack up the bell-bottoms, boys, they aren't coming back.”

“Right, typing in bright red is such a great way to ensure my continued existence. Being culled on the spot is exactly how I wanted to spend my pupation, Dave.”

“I’m just saying, I— wait, what?”

“Am I waiting for your puzzle sponge to expand from its usual state of shriveled atrophy?”

“No, once again I’m sitting in a kiddie pool waiting for someone to turn on the waters of context so I can splash around like the baby alligator some lonely Florida resident has always dreamed of becoming. Or, owning. Who the fuck wants to be an alligator, that’d be ridiculous. Having an alligator is way better than being one. They don't have thumbs.”

You sigh, rubbing the heel of your palm against a closed lookstub. Is it just you, or are his metaphors more obtuse than usual? “On your planet bright red blood might've been the norm, but on mine, it’s a mutation. I’m an ‘undesirable anomaly that needs to be eliminated from the genetic pool’. So! If I went around flaunting that particular fact about myself, my shorter lifespan would be even more drastically reduced that it already is.”

“Shorter lifespan?”

It looks like you’re going to have to dump the entirety of Alternia’s cultural volume into his think pan before he’s satisfied. “The higher up you go on the hemospectrum, the older you’ll live to be.” If you don't get yourself killed, at least. “That’s why we've had the same empress for so long, but there’s probably some other mystic royal shenanigans that go into that.” You squint at him. “How do you not know this?”

“Excuse me. Nobody gave me a crash course on troll sociopolitical dynamics and your horrific obsession with eugenics, like, seriously, what the fuck. It’s not like your romcoms spend much time discussing biological differences and actual history that isn't melodramatic war propaganda.”

You guess that’s your fault. It’s a ridiculous bias— except not, because those movies are overwrought garbage— but you never did get into tragedies that relied solely on incongruous lifespans for pathos. You’ve yet to break out the movies with more overt caste dynamics, too, and wow, you really suck at being the self-appointed Alternian-Earth media liaison.

“Back up for a second though— this,” he gestures at your arm, “would've gotten you killed?”

You nod.

“That's fucked up.”

“Well, apparently I brought it on myself by hideously botching my own ectobiology.”

“What? No, that’s— no?”

“Look, it doesn't matter anymore because Alternia’s dead and so are the threshcutioners that aren't coming for me. I overreacted like a panicked wiggler and that’s on me, okay?” You take a deep breath. “Now, like I was asking _before_ you derailed the conversation like a bomb on the tracks of our mutual communication, what is the deal with you right now? You’re acting weirder than I am.”

“Blood freaks me out, okay? I don't want to talk about it.”

You wait for a moment.

“Okay,” Dave says, “so it’s like, every time I see a great big puddle of cherry kool-aid I know there’s a dead Dave right around the corner, like the most fucked up dead end in the shitty cornmaze of Sburb, y'know? And it always reminds me of—” He cuts himself off with an odd noise, pulling apart some of the bandages in his hands. “Of shit. So seeing so much of it was just ringing all sorts of alarm bells, like a tornado siren in April when your visibility ain’t shit and you can’t tell a wall cloud from an actual fucking wall, and I know it’s just another shitty personal problem that I need to just get the fuck over because of course I’m a fucking knight, and I’m gonna have to fight again in two years, nine months, eleven days, fourteen hours, six minutes, thirty-four seconds, thirty-three, thirty-two, thirty-one—”

“Dave.”

He keeps counting.

“Dave!”

“Sorry. Sorry. I’m cool. Anyway, let’s talk about literally anything else, and I can't believe it took me so long to bring this up, but— what the fuck is up with the common room, why does it look like something out of a Lisa Frank coloring book vandalized by Mark Rothko’s unholy toddler offspring.”

You make the executive decision that letting Dave change the subject is a much better idea than forcing him back into compulsive timekeeping. “We’re probably far enough that we’re traveling through physical dream bubbles. For a given definition of ‘physical,’ I guess? Shit, I don’t know how this works. Anyway, you just had the privilege of seeing the Land of Quartz and Melody in all its glistening glory. Hope you enjoyed the ocular sabotage.”

“That wasn’t yours, was it? I can’t imagine you being constantly surrounded by all those pastels, even if the sharp pointy stuff jives with your aesthetic. I swear, a unicorn was about two seconds from jumping out of the quartz chunks.”

“It’s Aradia’s land, you jackass.”

Dave lets loose a sharp, humorless laugh. “Of course it is. Gotta love that time aspect. Always throwing new fun and deadly things at you.” He pauses. “Fucking quartz watches. That’d do it. We found the connection Sherlock, time to pack up the magnifying glass because the mystery has been fucking solved. That mystery being the medium’s obsession with unnecessary stealth puns that nobody bothers paying attention to. Shit, do trolls even have quartz watches? Clocks? You have timestamps on your pesterlogs, never mind. And a time player. Don’t listen to me.”

“I try not to,” you say, “and yet your words still sear my aural cavities.”

“I warned you that my rhymes were hot, bro.”

“What? Oh. No. Fuck you.”

Dave stares at you for a moment. “What was Alternia like?" He asks, in one of his increasingly common conversational about-faces. “The parts that didn't suck, I mean.”

“How do I even begin to condense an entire fucking planet, one old enough to make yours look like a primordial pool of genetic slurry, down to soluble chunks for your easy digestion?” Honestly, what is it with humans and their general disregard for everything beyond their extremely limited perspective. “Believe it or not, I’m not some encyclopedia made sentient by the ridiculous antics of a shit-eating monkey. That’s the one in orange pajamas.”

“Yeah, but you keep going on about a lusus or lusii or whatever the fuck, and I still don't know what that is except it’s like a mom that might eat you. I’m completely locked out of the convo, like I forgot my keys and no one’s gonna be home for hours.”

“You complain about exclusionary slang and then _immediately_ offer a comparison I have no frame of reference for,” you deadpan. “Well done.”

“I thought y’all had locks.”

“It’s the principle of the thing.” You cross your arms, letting out a huff of irritation. “Though, a lusus is an easy enough place to start, I guess.”

“That’s the spirit, Karkat.”

You flip him off. “It’s a mixed bag. Some trolls luck out and get a lusus that’s relatively competent and willing to teach them how to survive, some trolls end up with a bloodthirsty spider that’s hungry for troll flesh— Feferi’s lusus was pretty much a massive abomination that basically sustained our entire planet.”

“Sweet. What was yours?”

“I had a crustacean—”

Dave immediately bursts into laughter. “Seriously?”

“What!”

“No, nothing, it’s just—” He covers his mouth with his fist and coughs, but it does jack shit to disguise the way he’s trying to force down another fit of giggles. “I guess I should've seen that coming since you're such a crabby dude.”

“Well you can just gorge yourself on a healthy serving of shut the fuck up.” Surprisingly, he elects to not do that, and instead, to laugh some more. You’re _this close_ to punching him because it’s _really not that funny,_ but you don't. “Wow, watch as I never tell you anything about my personal life ever again, asshole!”

“Aw, Karkat,” he whines. “And after all the human heritage I’ve gone through the trouble of sharing with you.”

“You are a culturally insensitive nookstain and you’ve never presented otherwise,” you say, crossing your arms. “And slipping Good Luck Chuck into the movie selection stack _yet again_ does not broaden anyone’s cultural horizons!”

“Yes, it does,” Dave says, “and here’s how: you know the name and purpose of almost every object in this _room—_ not block, room— thanks to Good Luck Chuck.”

You scowl. “Think again, asshole. We’ve watched other human movies! And besides, I’ve _also_ seen some of them before I even spoke to you. So there.”

Dave clutches at his chest. “I can’t believe you, crabcakes. You preemptively cheated on our movie nights. You’re the middle-aged jerk who watched five whole episodes of Scrubs before sitting down with his loving wife to marathon that exact same chunk. There she is, so excited to share that special moment, when you’ve already popped your Scrubs cherry. Is this what our relationship means to you? Do I really rank below the narrative allure of Scrubs?”

“At this point, I don’t even need to know what that means to say yes.”

“You’re letting the romance die, Karkat. It’s dead. It’s dead and you killed it.”

You roll your glance nuggets. “If you’re going to be such a self-centered wiggler about this, I’ll put some of the movies I already watched back in the line-up.”

“Shit yes,” Dave says. “Score for Team Self-Centered Wiggler. I’ll uncaptchalogue my computer.”

“What, now?”

Dave’s already flopping onto the floor next to you, limbs akimbo. “You bet your sweet aunt fanny. Not like we have anywhere else to be.”

“As long as we don’t watch Good Luck Chuck _again_ , I— you have got to be kidding me.”

The monitor, once uncaptchalogued, is revealed to already be playing Good Luck Chuck, and there are no words for how much you hate yourself for knowing that it’s about twenty minutes in.

“Okay, I actually didn’t plan this, but it’s still fucking hilarious so I’m taking credit anyway,” Dave says, settling back, almost shaking in an attempt to contain his laughter.

You sigh and let your head clunk into the frame of the slumber plateau— you’ll die before you prove Dave right and call it a bed.

Well. This is apparently your fate. This is what Paradox Space has predestined for you. Watching Good Luck Chuck for the seventh time in as many days.

Unfortunately, you know it won’t be the last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [4:54:35 PM] Stella: so you know how we had that one brief chapter that was just dave & karkat and it was less than 3k words  
> [4:54:42 PM] Stella: I feel like that's going to be like chapter 7  
> [4:54:49 PM] Stella: davekat intermission  
> [4:54:55 PM] Air: DAVEKAT INTERMISSION  
> [4:55:08 PM] Air: our davekat fic,  
> [4:55:20 PM] Air: wherein friendship and character development is the main focus  
> [4:55:27 PM] Air: with brief davekat intermissions  
> [4:55:32 PM] Stella: welp


	8. Storytime with the most repugnant waste of publishing resources to ever be rescued from the death grip of an extinct world

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Grids Are for Squares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We made this gayer than it was originally intended to be, so enjoy that.  
> -Air
> 
> Did you know I used to be the biggest Karezi fan? I actually have a sketch of them by Hussie. Fun fact. Anyway, some of these lines have been written literally a week before we actually started writing this chapter, so I'm excited for them to actually exist. Also shoutout to vengersemble, for a line I didn't write.  
> -Stella

So, dream bubbles aren’t limited to dreams anymore, which, _whatever_. You adjust. A meeting is called (of course) to organize some semblance of a procedure— in the end, everyone is assigned their own shift for lookout duty. Between the eight of you (minus the mayor, who has more important duties to attend to, and Gamzee, who is Gamzee) it’s pretty easy to have eyes constantly on the abyss, especially since nobody’s sleeping schedule is quite synchronized.

It’s not so bad. Sometimes people just camp out on the roof together, gossiping about the latest buzz on the meteor and letting their shifts blend together like some sort of endless rooftop pajama party. You’ve fallen asleep up there sometimes, though never when there’s a dream bubble in sight. You kind of wonder what would happened if you did.

Right now you’re waiting for Dave to finish his shift, killing time in the common room because Vriska’s up after him, and the idea that you’d stick around for that handover is. Ha. No. Until then you’ve brought out a particularly disgusting and contrived facsimile of literature, because you delight in literary masochism. You’re barely a chapter in and you’re already cringing over the prose alone— you haven't even gotten to the introduction of the most infuriating character, that is, _the main one_ , and you're beginning to contemplate the merits of leaving this heinous insult to belletristic pursuits in the load gaper, where it belongs.

Oh! And here comes Cornet, blustering into the spotlight like a huge tool. The object of his hate sure is lucky to have such a controlling, egotistical wiggler who’s more intent on asserting his life as an arduous endeavor _so much worse_ than anyone else’s, especially anyone interested in sharing a quadrant with him. Imagine, Pauken could’ve had a healthy blackrom with someone who didn't constantly devalue him and write off every facet of his personality as insignificant, and what a tragedy that would have been! Instead, you get to read pages and pages about how superior Cornet is to every other troll in the galaxy, in _excruciating detail_. You don't even know the author but you swear, this has got to be the most egregious example of a blatant, mediocre, abhorrent self-insert you've ever had the misfortune to—

“Alright, you have _got_ to read whatever terrible book you're reading out loud.”

You flail a bit on your perch, scrambling for some leverage against the irresistible pull of gravity. You succeed. Kind of. “What makes you think it’s terrible?” You ask, trying to disguise the fact that your face being planted squarely on the table is the only thing keeping you from the tender embrace of the floor. “For all you know, I could be enjoying the pinnacle of Alternian literature.”

“Yeah, right.” Dave plops down next to you, tugging you upright. “You only do bizarre couch yoga when you're not having a good time. You’re probably an eleven out of ten on the contortion scale— I’d say this must be some hecatomb of words you've got in your hands.”

“It’s great that you’re actually expressing _some_ interest in high Alternian culture, but I think your introduction to the intricacies of actual romance should be something less trashy and objectively bad.”

“Are you kidding? ‘Trashy and objectively bad’ is what I live for.” He tugs the book out of your hands, scrutinizing its cover. “Wait, are they naked?”

“What part of ‘trashy and objectively bad’ continues to elude you, Dave?”

“If it’s so bad, why are you reading it?”

“In the interest of processing the full sociological implications of each and every interpersonal scenario I’ve ever had the displeasure of being party to, I have to expose myself to a wide range of wrong opinions and incompetent dithering. How am I supposed to do that if I only read good books?”

Honestly, sometimes you just want an excuse to yell. Even if it’s only in the comfort of your own think pan.

That said, you have just been offered the opportunity to yell as loudly and for as long as you want.

You start from the beginning.

“The blistering gaze of the hateful eye known as the sun had barely retreated behind the writhing, indigo clouds, the nobler color mingling with the last of the florid radiance as it never had before—” You stop for a second. “Okay, there’s the blatant sledgehammer of foreshadowing, if you didn’t catch it buried underneath all those useless words. Got to let everyone know right off the bat what kind of fetish fuel we have here. How else would anyone sell these novels for the extravagant price of a whole whopping caegar?”

“ls this a blood thing again?”

“Yes, Dave, it’s ‘a blood thing’.” You roll your lookstubs and continue to recite the gripping tale of how Cornet Trompa proceeds to be a complete and utter throb stalk, first by reacting to the death of his moirail by whining about how _his_ emotional needs won’t be properly met, and then pinning the blame entirely on the moirail’s matesprit, Pauken, for not sacrificing his life for her, even though that would have accomplished exactly diddly squat.

Cornet spends all of one page meditating on his bullshit logic before deciding that he’s waxing black for Pauken, and in a dramatic twist, swears to prove himself better in every way by seducing everyone in Pauken’s remaining quadrants. It’s a shitty plan, even without the fact that literally no one would be attracted to Cornet for more than five seconds in real life. Despite that immutable truth, it seems to work in the book. Which is one of the many reasons it’s garbage.

“Hold up, is Pauken a dude or a chick?”

“Both leads are guys, Dave”

“What about the girl on the cover?”

“She’s the auspistice, and the only one I trust in this entire novel to make good decisions, ever. The author hates her, of course. He’s probably allergic to characters with actual depth, so her existence is especially miraculous.”

Dave ignores this insightful commentary in lieu of being a rude asshole. “So it’s a love story between two troll dudes. Hate story.” Dave pauses. “That’s gay.”

“If you say so. Can I keep reading, or do you have any other mind-blowing revelations to submit?”

Dave puts his prongs up in facetious submission, and you continue. It takes a while to read because you have to stop every other sentence to go over some cultural nuance— Dave only seems able to concentrate when explanations aren't explicitly framed in quadrant vocabulary, but also, speaking so generally about such complex emotions and relationships is like trying to engage in ectobiological exploits without the use of slime, and it would _really_ be _a lot easier_ with appropriately defined terminology, _which he refuses to learn_.

So you get out the calcium slate.

“Wait, what are you doing? Why do you always have that on you?”

“If you won't let me use the right words, maybe you'll understand if I use the right symbols!”

“So help me if you draw a shipping grid for a book you don't even _like_ —”

“Guess what time it is! That’s right! It’s time to draw some diagrams! Hold onto your cape, because I’m about to bust out a shit-ton of fucking grids.” After a second, you think to add, “Non-fucking grids, too.”

With the backdrop of Dave’s long and sustained groan, you take the time to sketch out the cast of this unmitigated wreckage, seeing as he hasn't even made an attempt to learn Alternian. You’re considerate as fuck in the face of his incompetence.

Dave briefly stops his wiggler antics to ask, “Who’s grumpy face?”

“Which one?”

“Okay, the fact that you have to ask that means that there is something wrong with your diagrams, dude. They have to be representative.”

“They are representative! There’s just a lot of grumpy trolls in this horrific slough of a story!”

“You gotta make the symbols distinct, not Grumpy Face one through seven,” he says.

You give him a look. Hopefully that look conveys the full impact of, ‘do you even listen to what comes out of your gaping chute’. “There are only six characters on the slate, Dave.”

He pokes your cartilaginous nub. “I found number seven.”

“Fuck off.”

“Number seven is as rude as he is grumpy. Didn’t your lusus teach you any manners?” Dave tuts.

“Fine, jackass, if you’re so enamored with the idea of accurate rendering, you can draw the characters.”

“Sweet, I’m making Cornet a dick.”

Dave seems satisfied with his new occupation for all of ten minutes before he drops his chalk and slumps back into the cushions.

“Alright this is getting way too cramped. I can't tell which arrows are going where.”

It’s a valid point. With the introduction of Chorda’s unprecedented, unforeshadowed, nonsensical, absolutely _pointless_ vacillation from ashen to flushed— for _Cornet,_ of all trolls! Cornet! Really? After her heartfelt discussion with Caipir about how much she pitied Pauken?— your modest slate doesn't have nearly enough room to accommodate the absolute shitstorm of baseless romantic overtures.

“I,” you announce, closing the book with finality, “am going to alchemize a full-sized, schoolhive calcium slate.”

Dave sits up. “Don't you fucking dare.”

“You can't stop me.” You've recaptchalogued the book. It’s decided. You're doing this. You're making this happen.

“See, that’s where you're wrong. I have to, Karkat, it’s for the good of the meteor. I can't let you make that blackboard. It’s too much power. Sorry man, you brought this on yourself.”

Before you can ask what the fuck he’s talking about, Dave flops over you, effectively pinning you to the couch.

“What the fuck!”

“And thus, Dave Strider saves the day, rescuing the hapless civilians of the meteor from Karkat’s compulsive grid-shipping. Nobody will sing about this moment, because no one will ever know how close they were to finding out just how far this fucking nerd is willing to go to map out a shitty novel he doesn’t even fucking like. I mean, Jesus, Karkat.”

“I’m going to make that fucking slate, Dave! And when I do! Nothing will stop me from delineating _every_ _single_ _relationship_ developed in this irredeemable mess!”

“Or you could leave the shambles of this shitstorm in the disarray it’s obviously destined to be. Trying to force order on that is playing god, Karkat, and I should know. I have pajama credentials.” He shakes his head. “You were so preoccupied with whether or not you could that you didn’t stop to think if you should. That’s how you get dinosaurs, man.“

“I will fuck up at being god if I damn well please! I have experience with it!” You flail wildly, which only gets you tangled in his ridiculous pajama mantle, and, oh. He’s suddenly really close. Extremely close. You didn't notice until now but he’s literally lying on top of you, and with that bit of cape now wrapped around your leg, he’s got his arms propped parenthetical to your head, which is the only thing that keeps you from pulling him down any further and he is incredibly. In your space. Dave seems to realize this exactly when you do because he freezes, like he’s not sure where to go from here.

This is, of course, when Kanaya and Rose appear on the transportalizer. They don’t even have the decency to arrive mid-conversation. Instead, they have nothing better to do but stare blankly at the both of you.

Rose smiles.

Dave falls off the couch.

“Blackboard!” you yell, before promptly fucking off for exactly that.

 

* * *

 

Kanaya follows you to the alchemiter because of course she does. Luckily, she’s Kanaya, and therefore in possession of the entire meteor’s secret store of tact— instead of immediately jumping into your private business, she gives you a bit of her aspect.

“Do not think these developments have escaped my notice. When did ‘Strider’ become ‘Dave’?” She asks, and you take it back. There is no tact on this meteor and there never has been. Everyone for themselves. Anarchy is your only guide, dissolution your only option; abandon fucking ship at all costs and head for the hills.

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” you say, in a last-ditch attempt to salvage your dignity. Based on Kanaya’s answering expression, it comes at a price— the illusion of your competence.

“Seeing as I stated both his given name and surname, I am rather surprised to find that you are unfamiliar with this individual. He is approximately the same size and shape as Rose, and was last seen draped over you before tumbling onto the floor.”

“That wasn't anything. It was an accident! We were goofing around.”

“Believe it or not Karkat, I have little to no interest in discerning the particulars of whatever activities you were partaking in, and would honestly rather remain ignorant of any innuendo-laden alternatives. I am simply interested in gauging how you personally feel. As your friend, your emotional state is important to me.”

“The strongest emotion I’m feeling right now is a violent need to escape this conversation so I don’t have to admit I’m,” you wave your hand, “not exactly enemies with Dave.”

“You have not been for a while, it seems.”

“So,” you say, desperate for a change in topic, “how’s the book?”

“The book we were scheduled to discuss today, before Rose and I found you and Dave being ‘not enemies’ in the common room?”

“Oh, fuck. That was today.”

“Yes, though I am amenable to any change in plans.” She tilts her head, and seems to come to a decision. “What were you yelling about earlier? A ‘blackboard’?” She asks, graciously following your transparent redirection. That’s why she’s your favorite.

“I was reading the worst affront to Alternian literature to ever disgrace the insides of my cornea, right before you zapped in,” you explain, holding up the book so you don't have to read out the title. “Of course, that caught Dave’s interest, but he kept getting lost because he _insists_ on being an uncultured jackass. I was going to alchemize a bigger calcium slate.”

“Ah, Karkat. Only ever portraying the art of Alternia in its best light.”

“Are you even aware when you’re being sarcastic anymore, or is it still a conscious decision?”

“Both of the given options have the same meaning, so I will elect to ignore them.” Kanaya shakes her head. “Well, as it seems our discussion of literature that bears actual merit is to be postponed, I certainly would not be opposed to joining ‘Storytime With Karkat.’ Although...”

She brings a prong to her face, her eyebrows knitting together. “I suggest we hurry back— we did, after all, leave Rose and Dave alone after your public display of armistice.”

Oh, _fuck_.

 

* * *

 

When you arrive with your spoils, that is, one appropriately-sized calcium slate, you expect the worst. Surprisingly, there is exactly zero carnage. It’s a remarkably placid atmosphere, actually, even with Dave trying to suffocate himself with a cushion.

“So, what—”

“Let’s get back to the trash,” Dave says, immediately cutting you off. “You got the blackboard? Great. Fuck yeah. Let’s draw some goddamn diagrams.”

Well, apparently ‘storytime with the most repugnant waste of publishing resources to ever be rescued from the death grip of an extinct world’ is a-go. Dave maintains his artistic duties, but over time, the slate is additionally covered by Rose’s slowly expanding glossary. Not to mention the dynamic maze of arrows shifting _faster than should be possible_. Kanaya, even with her terrible taste in genres, always has insightful commentary, though there are some observations the two of you fundamentally disagree on.

"Kanaya, I think I speak for all of us when I say that anyone who still enjoys reading trashy rainbow drinker novels after actually _becoming a rainbow drinker_ is unqualified to pass judgement on the only sensible relationship in this entire novel!"

“I agree with Kanaya, actually.”

“Sorry, what was that? It sounded a lot like I have garbage opinions. Please pay no attention to my flagrant disregard for narrative structure.”

Kanaya pinches the divot of her cartilaginous nub. “All I am saying is that it would make far more sense if the two had become moirails instead. Their dynamic in a kismesissitude simply does not fit with their individual character arcs."

“Look, if you’d just  _pay attention_  to how they react to the events of chapter four," you seethe, gesturing emphatically at the book. “Just! Listen! ‘And with an anguished cry to the heavens, Caipir mourned the caustic sun of her life, the blistering luminescence that had consumed her perigees and set her alight with every moment—”

“Wait the sun is like... a _bad_ thing, isn't it? Is this a hatemance again?”

“Dave, were you even paying attention? Vacillation happened about twenty pages ago!”

“No, okay, look: wasn’t that like ‘clubbed’ or whatever by the ex-‘mwa—’”

“I'm getting out the calcium slate.”

“We already _have_ a blackboard.”

“I’m getting out my slate!”

“We do not need another blackboard. Karkat, do not get out that blackboard, do not pull out a ‘calcium slate’, do not produce _any_ surface for the purpose of depicting fictional relationships via chalk-based medium or so help me I will eat it. It’ll go faster than pudding cups at the lunch rush. Sorry Jimmy, you’re gonna have to go with jello today because I’m shoving that blackboard straight down my gullet. I’ll probably choke to death, and let’s face it, it’s gonna be a heroic death because it’ll save everyone here from having to watch you go at it with _two fucking blackboards_. Is that what you want, Karkat? My untimely death, tragically wrought by your obsession with diagrams?”

“Would you look at that! While you were going on your inane verbal spree, I just so happened to get out my slate. Sit your ass down, it’s time for a review. In fact, there’s so much to cover I might just need to alchemize another blackboard! What do you think, Rose?”

“We certainly are running out of room on this one. If another vacillation happens, I’m not sure it can be properly recorded.”

“Hey, Karkat! Isn't it time for your shift?” Dave asks, a question no doubt born of desperation. You will have no dirty tactics in the war against bad literature, so you open your mouth to fire back before realizing that, fuck, it’s time for your shift.

These are the hazards of interacting with a walking clock. It’s always time for something convenient. Nevertheless, this is a mere setback. Nothing can hold back the tide of serious romantic analysis.

“Well, I guess our intensive conversation about this particular vacillation is postponed. But mark my words, Dave. There will be a second slate.”

“Rose, quick, alchemize a blender. We’re having chalk smoothie at this juice bar. Gotta get your daily supplements, keep yourself regular. Add a Vitamin D boost to mine because I don’t have the advantage of hanging with my own personal vampire sun all day. Or being the actual sun. Whatever it is that keeps—”

The transportalizer whisks you away before you have to suffer through wherever that particular line of thought was heading.

 

* * *

 

When you get to the roof, there’s someone already there.

It’s Terezi.

That figures. You’ve been skulking around, waiting for a chance to talk to her for perigees, but now that you have the opportunity, you don't actually know what to do. In fact, you think you have something incredibly important to do anywhere that isn't here, and she hasn't seen you yet so—

“Hey Karkat.”

Fuck.

“Terezi,” you say, starting a slow shuffle to her like you're walking towards a noose. You’ll bid your respects to Senator Lemonsnout. “I wasn't expecting you.”

“Yeah. Vriska switched shifts with me. She left you a note,” she explains, handing you a slip of paper. On it, written in obnoxious cerulean, is: This makes us square. Maybe you’ll actually show some appreci8ion, for once.

 _Does that abhorrently obtuse nitwit ever_ _listen to a single word you say_.

“She’s doing her best,” Terezi says reproachfully, and whoops, looks like you've said that out loud.

“Her best is, _at best_ , a morass of bad decisions that provides a scenic backdrop to her tantrum terrace, and I don't know how you can spend so much time enduring her endless spew of self-aggrandizing bullshit.”

“Well, I hope I'd spend time with my own moirail!”

Oh.

_Oh._

“Uh, congratulations,” you manage to push out. That groundbreaking revelation certainly explains a lot. “How long?”

“A while now. It’s not like we’ve been hiding it.”

“I didn't think she— uh,” well, you can't really say you didn't think she needed Terezi that much without shoving your entire frond pod down your chagrin tunnel, even if Vriska seems to do whatever the fuck she wants with or without pacification, so you cut that off at the pass. Of course, Terezi knows exactly what you stopped yourself from getting at.

“She doesn't, but I do! Apparently I needed her so much I let the alpha timeline fall apart without her.” She crosses her arms, scraping her tongue against her teeth as if trying to get rid of a bad taste. “You go on and on about your mistakes, but at least you didn’t screw up so much you had to change the alpha timeline! I don't know what happened, but I’ve been trying to figure out what I need to do. I've been trying to figure out what my future self needed me to do. And Vriska’s been helping me, believe it or not, while I've been questioning every decision I make.”

She turns to look— sniff— over the side of the roof instead of at you. “I know I've been distant, but... sorry. I’m just trying to figure out what I can do without spiraling us headfirst into another doomed timeline”

It’s honestly what you’ve been looking for since this whole… _thing_ started. An acknowledgment. An explanation. An apology. But it’s a lot less cathartic than you thought it’d be. There’s a lot to address here, and suddenly your problems don’t seem to be as big of a deal.

You reach out a tentative hand for the most awkward shoulder pat ever bestowed in the entirety of Paradox Space. “Look, Terezi—”

“I can’t, asshole.”

“ _Listen_ , Terezi. You don't have to carry the whole alpha timeline. You’re important, but you’re not the only one on this rock. If you try to take responsibility for everything we do wrong, you’re going to give yourself an aneurysm. Can you imagine trying to shoulder all of our personal failures?” You grimace. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but that’s a fuck-ton of flaws to carry around.”

She laughs, though it’s a far cry from her usual manic cackling. “When did you actually grow up, nubs?”

“I’m just repeating what everyone’s been telling me. It’s Kanaya certified, by the way.” Hopefully she’ll take it as good advice, since it wasn’t expelled from the black hole of bad decisions that is your think pan. “You aren’t in anyone’s shadow, you know. Trust me, I get how it feels to have your future self lording their experience over you like a living monument to your own insufferable ego, and I get that you probably feel like you have this impossible, elusive troll to live up to, but, hear me out,” you say, holding up your hands.

“I know me, and I know you, and you’ve never been like that to yourself. Like, the ex-alpha timeline clearly had a ton of things that went to shit, but future-you fixed it for alpha-you. I mean, she didn’t fix it, she made it so some of the boiling feculent catastrophe that would’ve otherwise barreled straight into you _isn’t going_ to interfere with your baseline aptitude, which is a fucking impressive stat, by the way.” At least, that’s what you think happened? Mind powers.

“The point is, future-you trusts alpha-you to do the right thing, and it’s not some unwarranted, half-assed, ‘well, I sure hope this works out,’ because she knows you. She knows that you don’t even need to _try_ to be the amazing person you already are, she just had to make sure nothing gets in the way of that.”

You tell her now what you’ve never been able to tell her before, back when you were caught up in your never ending vortex of self-indulgent bullshit.

“Terezi Pyrope, you’re incredible.”

She goes still for a moment, and you think, fuck, you’ve just said exactly the wrong thing. There you go, ruining everything yet again. What if this is exactly what she's been trying to avoid this whole time? She’d seen this bullshit emotion spewed by a flailing wiggler coming and she— 

She turns to you with her usual sharp grin. You’d never admit it, not in a million sweeps, but god you’ve missed it. “Don't you forget it, nubs."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1:43:34 AM] Air: what are we having kanaya talk about again  
> [1:43:56 AM] Air: OH  
> [1:43:59 AM] Air: STRIDER DAVE  
> [1:44:00 AM] Air: ANIME  
> [1:44:03 AM] Stella: *~relationships~*  
> [1:44:25 AM] Air: glad that thsi is a coherent conversation  
> [1:44:40 AM] Air: that carries meaning  
> [1:44:42 AM] Air: somehow


	9. Restless Slumber

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which The Cogs Are Set In Motion in An Entirely Figurative Sense, Seeing as The Literal Cogs Have Physically Been at Work Since Dave Entered The Medium.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, we're past the halfway point. I keep heckin saying this but I'm SUPPOSED to be doing finals, the latter half of this fic isn't as meticulously outlined, updates might slow, blah blah blah honestly id even k anymore for all I know one glorious day we'll churn out fifty billion words and that'll be the fic. maybe we'll take a day off again for research. maybe there'll be one inexplicable blockage where we can't figure anything else out for a week. or, most unrealistically, maybe we'll continue AT THE SAME PACE.  
> -Stella
> 
> I'm honestly so glad to be part of this literary seesaw of a collaboration, and I'm excited to share this chapter with y'all because multiverse shit is to me as hardcore romance analysis is to Stella. Hope you enjoy.  
> -Air

You wake up in the Land of Heat and Clockwork.

Which means you’re definitely asleep because the last thing you remember is human Dane Cook’s odious visage as he complained about something you’ve lost the ability to care about long ago. Well. You’re in no hurry to wake up and face that particular source of ennui, even if Dave’s land is a sweltering, odious monument to poor aesthetics.

You stand up, deciding to make your way to any structure that isn’t completely made of metal or superheated rock, and is therefore less deadly than the platform you’re standing on. Sure, you won’t actually die, but you don’t want to take another bath in molten basalt. Now that you’re asleep you might as well let yourself get some rest. You can see Dave’s hive in the distance, which seems like a safe enough bet— it’s quite the trek, but it’s not like you’re wasting anyone’s time. After all, you’re asleep, and Dave has plenty of it to spare.

You’re disgusted with yourself for even making that joke in the privacy of your own think pan. Next thing you know, you’ll be making blood puns. You’re on a slippery slope here, and the dropoff is a bottomless sieve that is, paradoxically, brimming with terrible wordplay.

By the time you reach his hive you’re pretty sure you’ve sweat enough to fill that hypothetical wordplay void. At the risk of sounding like a certain perspiring assfart, you really need a towel. Luckily, Dave’s given you the tour through passing dream bubbles, so you know exactly where to find one— you make your way up the frankly unnecessary amount of stairs, stumble into Dave’s block, and as you bend over to pant from both heat exhaustion _and_ physical exhaustion ( _fuck_ you're out of shape), you catch a glimpse of a familiar silhouette out of the corner of your lookstubs.

“Dave, I swear on the disgusting tendrils of every eldritch abomination floating in the Furthest Ring, your land gets more and more unrepentantly deplorable each time we end up in it. Fucking incredible. I can't wait for it to produce some horrifying dream bubble offspring with a land that has some form of climate control. Or even better, something equally terrible on the opposite side of the spectrum. Like LOFAF. Add frozen water to the lava and— no, fuck that, that’s the worst of the never ending train of fatally grotesque ideas that has ever been puzzled from my sponge. You know what water plus molten rock equals? Blistering, painful steam. Fuck, I’m going to be shitting myself in fear over that dream bubble collision for the rest of my life.”

Dave hasn’t interjected once, letting your diatribe finish unimpeded, which is… really fucking worrying, actually. Although it could just mean that you’re actually alone, and that— No, fuck, he’s right in front of you, and _how the fuck does he move that fast?_

“Holy fuck, was that really necessary?” You wheeze.

The way he stands is… off. His expression is set, and he barely moves his head, but you can tell that he’s looking you up and down. Barely.

“Looks like we’ve caught a live one” he drawls, and fuck he’s a doomed Dave isn’t he? Shit. “We should call in Steve Irwin. A sighting of the rare alpha timeline troll. One in a billion, those.”

He’s not the first doomed Dave you’ve seen— there’s a lot of them, after all. It’s just always hard to tell at first because they’re all _wearing the fucking shades_.

You know with all the endless permutations of timelines there’s an infinite amount of dead Daves, but there always seem to be a particular abundance of them compared to the other dream bubble residents. You've kind of gotten used to it, but also, it’s jarring; it makes you feel weird, and a little breathless, like the second in between materializing on the transportalizer and realizing you’ve gone and put in the wrong end coordinates because you’re an incompetent jackass.

Still, the dead Daves tend to either clump together in packs, or find another group to stick to. Your studies indicate that the Dave human is a social creature by nature. No matter whose dream bubble they might pop up in, they usually aren’t alone.

“Is there anybody else here?” You ask before you can catch yourself, because apparently when you fooled around with your own ectobiological makeup, you forgot to give yourself a think pan-to-chute filter.

“Nope,” Dave says, popping the plosive consonant. “Sorry to disappoint, but the population count consists of one permanent resident here in Vesuvius’s septic tank.” His voice and expression don’t change at all, and you’re suddenly aware of how different this Dave is from your Dave. The way he talks, the way he holds himself, the way he looks at you...

It's weird seeing him so guarded again.

“So, you come here often?” He pauses for long enough that you’re positively sure your Dave would’ve been hitting himself with a seat cushion in that silence. “I meant that as a totally sincere question, by the way. Not a thing. A thing that you probably don’t get anyway. Unless the me you know has introduced you to the thing through shitty references, which is likely, considering the way you were talking about him.”

Well, at least the rambling is a universal constant. It’s reassuring, in some foreign-yet-familiar way you don’t want to examine too closely.

“Not really,” you say, graciously getting the rail transport of your mutual conversation back on track. “You've just shown me around whenever we get the privilege to boil in LOHAC.”

“Right. Alpha Dave. How is that guy. How is that me. How is that me guy.”

The way he phrased the question rings a very faint dong shouter, enough to throw you off your already precarious grasp of the situation, but you shrug it off. Dave reuses jokes all the time, despite his blustering about his creative artistry.

“Trying to beat the current record of most recorded viewings of Good Luck Chuck, even though that record is already _held by you_. Don’t ask me what kind of statement you’re trying to make, because at this point I’m probably the least equipped being in any universe to explore the labyrinthine channels of your logic-resistant puzzle sponge.”

Dave stares at you for a second. He doesn’t so much emote as he projects incredulity. “That’s, uh, weird, honestly. If anything deserves a rewatch, it’s Click. Can’t go wrong with Adam Sandler. Or anything with Ben Stiller, really. Good Luck Chuck doesn’t have that same rewatchability. Where’s the heart? The lovingly overphotoshopped promotional material? It may have the essential artistic core of a terrible premise and poor execution, but it makes the mistake of trying to force appeal by genuinely trying to market its originality.” He shakes his head. “It’s like passing up a Monet crafted out of glitter covered macaroni art for a Van Gogh made out of plastic cheerios. Sure, they both serve their purpose, but only one is truly dedicated to the statement. Good Luck Chuck is the inferior work here, is all I’m saying.”  

“I knew it,” you say, throwing your hands into the air. “I fucking _knew_ it! No one plays a movie at _three times_ its normal speed and calls it fucking NightChuck— like I’d know what he’s even referencing, which I _never do_ — when they actually want to enjoy a movie, much less ’bask in every single glorious moment of Dane Cook’s luminous visage in his quest for interpersonal development like a stray cat on the hood of a thirty-seven-year-old bachelor’s chevy’!”

“Wow. I can't even tell if that’s a direct quote or not. How long have you been practicing that impression? Because honestly I’m feeling personally attacked.”

“I— we’re,” you pause, considering what exactly you can say to that. “We’re close.”

“Alpha Dave sure did hit the jackpot.”

You flip him off on reflex.

“I almost wish I was kidding, dude. I always thought that you’d be like the secret shouty route in the visual novel of life. Sink eighty hours into that thing, blow all your money on some ultra-rare presents, and you’re still less than halfway to unlocking that shit. No sir, you gotta be dedicated to activate that particular social link. Can’t half-ass it.” He shrugs. “Don’t get me wrong, you’re still a huge asshole.”

“And I was feeling so flattered. Pardon me as I lament the poignant moment forever lost to us.” You inject as much apathy as possible into that one sentence, and it’s weird. It’s weird! It’s like you're back at the other end of the viewport, skipping through his life in some ill-conceived and juvenile plot to take out the frustration of a doomed session in the most grubfisted way possible. But you're not. You haven't been for six perigees.

“You don't get it.” With that, you snap out of your introspection to catch Dave crossing his arms, considering you through his inscrutable shades. “It’s like the feeling you get when a cat that's a major dick to everyone else suddenly cozies up to you.”

Yeah, that's. Not a feeling you'd really understand.

“So," he continues, "good on alpha Dave for getting everything figured out and making friends along the way. So proud of our baby boy. Go team. Way to get that puck through the hoop. Nothing but net. Stanley cup, here we come.” There’s a certain bite to way he says the words; again, it's an uncomfortable déjà vu, and it sets you on the defensive.

“What the fuck is your problem right now?” Maybe it's not the best approach to take, barreling headfirst into whatever's up with this Dave, but the endless deluge of bad decisions that characterizes your existence is impossible to hold back and _right now_ it's hellbent on finding out why Dave's being so— being so...

“Problem? I don’t see a fucking problem. Everything’s fine and dandy as can be. You’ll wake up in the alpha timeline where you belong, save the universe, and hang out with your good buddy alpha Dave, and I get this first-rate crib to hang out in for the rest of existence. Eat your heart out, MTV. Sounds like a sweet deal to me.” He looks out the window. “I never wanted to deal with any of that last stand bullshit to begin with. I guess that wasn’t even really my choice.”

“Dave—”

“You mean ‘Doomed Dave,’ right?”

“Will you stop acting like a pupating dunderfuck for one second and listen to me!”

His mouth closes with a click, just like your Dave when you stop him mid-ramble. You really hope this trend of you regurgitating advice can die soon, because you’re pretty sure you’re not half as good at reciting Kanaya’s wisdom when compared to the original auxiliatrix herself.

“I’m not going to sit you down and do an impression of Rose—”

“I would pay to see that,” he mumbles, quieting once more when you glare at him.

“—But if I am good at _any_ superfluous activity in the entire breadth of Paradox Space, it’s making baseless assumptions and launching bulge-first into tirades, so you might want to sit your ass down anyway because I’m about to multitask like no troll ever has.”

You think you see his mouth twitch at that, which gives you the confidence to continue. “You absolute nookstain—”

“Oh, that’s how you know it’s going to be good.”

“Shut up and stay shut up. You seem to be functioning— though I use the word as loosely as possible— under the assumption that your existence is an inconsequential afterthought of a ‘successful’ timeline, which is an opinion that’s worth a fraction of its weight in shit. Its weight being nonexistent in the first place.” You cross your arms. “Newsflash! Paradox Space is an entity that runs on entropic nonsense, and the events that dumped me frond-over-horns into the alpha timeline were more of the same. I just happened to have a friend who’s superior to me in pretty much every aspect, especially her own, and she worked her ass off to ensure that me and everyone else didn’t fucking die. Am I any better than any Karkat out there? Fuck no, but that’s also because all of us are equally shit. We are shit, Dave. Festering, egotistical piles of shit that have gained sentience and the unfortunate ability to produce yet more shit out of inexplicably developing pustules.”

Dave’s face screws up in disgust, which is, at last, an emotion. A true breakthrough has been made for all of trollkind on this day. You deserve an award.

“The point is, each and every iteration of me ended up going down a certain path due to a nigh incalculable amount of variables, and I made the choices that made the most sense to me at the time. And if I am worth anything at all, even if it’s that fraction of aforementioned garbage opinion, that means you, Dave fucking Strider, are worth just as much as any other iteration of yourself.” You frown. “You jackass,” you add for good measure.

He opens and closes his mouth, before turning away from you. “Well that's a thing that certainly got said.”

“I say all the things.”

He laughs, and it’s such a sudden, unexpected sound that both of you jump. It’s progress, though, and you feel the beginnings of a grin yourself. “There we go. I was wondering if you’d ever loosen up.”

Dave scoffs. “You realize that I’m not alpha Dave, right? This could be my loose. I could be looser than your Aunt May’s grip on a waterski tow after three hours at the lake. She’s still hanging on, but at what cost?”

“I just spent ten minutes yelling about how your experiences are different from my Dave’s, you absolute suppurate pusballoon.”

“You said absolutely jack shit about that. You just went on about worth forever.”

“It was _implied,_ you nincompoop.”

“Sure it was,” Dave says, shaking his head.

Everything is still for a moment, quiet but for the sound of clockwork and the churning of molten rock.

“It’s fucked up.” Dave isn’t looking at you, instead talking to the air beside him, but you can hear him clearly enough. “Y’see thousands of you dying and you think, well, that’s a shit hand you just got dealt, but it’ll be alright because that ain’t you, and you’re gonna be the one who makes it farther, but then it turns out that you were never going to be the one who actually makes it. You were never meant for that. You’re not even an important dead Dave, that’s the one fused into a feathery asshole.” His voice gets quiet enough that, if you were a human, you wouldn’t be able to catch it. “You're just the result of another failed timeline, one more corpse on the mountain for alpha Dave to climb to victory.” He laughs again, only it comes out low. Bitter. “I guess that’s just the way it goes.”

On impulse, on instinct, you reach out to him, because he might not be your Dave but he’s _Dave_. So you wrap a loose arm around him, not quite pulling him in, because fuck, wait a second, it's not like you actually know this Dave, for all you know this is exactly what he _doesn't_ want, or need, and he’ll probably shrug you off and do that weird thing where he basically teleports to the intersection of ‘not here’ and ‘somewhere else’ to brood in peace—

But he doesn't. He tenses for a second, probably not expecting a hug from someone who, from his perspective, is basically a stranger, but the he leans into you— collapses, really— and you sit in silence, anchored by his cold weight.

You stay like that for a while.

“It’s been about eight hours for you,” he says eventually, and you’re sure he knows exactly how long, down to the second. “You’re probably gonna wake up soon.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m a lucky guy if I've got you looking after me. Even if you are kind of a long-winded asshole who somehow manages both smug superiority and self-deprecation at the same time, all the time.”

You once again expose him to the sight of your favorite finger, but there’s no heart in it. After a moment, you clear your windpipe. “Hey, Dave?”

He raises his eyebrow above his shades in an expression so familiar, you could almost forget where you are, who you're talking to. You don’t, though. This is important. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get the chance to repeat this again, so listen up. You’re not some expendable, lesser Dave. You did what made sense at the time. Maybe it wasn't the alpha choice, but it was yours. And I know it sucks, and you probably don't want to hear this from someone who’s actually alive, and here I am saying it yet again, but…” You shrug. “Find someone to talk to. It doesn't have to be me— I'd be a terrible choice, actually, so just avoid any me entirely— but just because you're dead doesn't mean you can't be... happy.”

Dave stares at you long enough for it to get a little uncomfortable. “That was freakishly genuine and sincere. Who are you, and what have you done with Karkat?”

“Fuck off.”

“Oh, thank god, you’re back.”

Which is when you wake up.

You hope Dave appreciates the irony.

 

* * *

 

You wake up lying across Dave’s lap. As you shift, bleary from sudden consciousness, his hand jolts from your hair.

“Looks like sleeping beauty’s awake,” he says, and either his volume control is off, or you just got used to the other Dave’s muttering because wow, was that fucking loud.

You sit up.

Under normal circumstances you might bluster and fuss and jump away like you’ve been scalded, not to mention the meandering and incomprehensible apology thrown in for good measure, but you don't. Right now, his warmth is a nice enough reminder that it overrides that inclination.

“Have you been awake this whole time?” You ask instead, settling back against him. “Seriously? I've been out for like, eight hours.”

“I wasn't. I fell asleep right after you did. We were two peas, nice and snug in the pod of slumberland, following Nemo on his weird and frankly terrifying—” he cuts himself off, canting his head towards you. “How did you know how long you were out?”

“You told me.” At his blank stare, you clarify, “I saw you in the dream bubble I woke up in.”

He clasps a hand to his chest, his usual show of facetious theatrics. “Are you saying that I haunt your dreams?”

“Yes, Dave, your entrancing visage shadows my every thought. I pass my days in scintillating anguish, consumed by anticipation for our tender embrace. I long for it as you might long for the glory days of the fruity rumpus asshole factory, back when you were somewhere you belonged. Right in the asshole factory. It’s your home.“

“You know, I've heard worse descriptions of Texas.” He lets out a chuckle at his own fucking joke, because he’s an atrocious nerd.

After a moment, he hums. “So. Dave. How is that guy. How is-”

“That ‘you guy’ is doing fine,” you interrupt, much to his obvious offense. “Sort of. He is now, hopefully.”

“Was he not doing fine before?”

You make a vague, noncommittal sound. “He was… different from you. It was weird.”

“Well, I guess I’m not surprised.” He tilts his head up, but you can tell he’s looking at you from the corner of his gander bulbs. “I’ve changed a lot on the meteor so far.”

“And yet you’re still wearing the exact same pajamas.”

“They’re magic and eternally clean and comfy as shit, and you have no room to talk because you’re wearing the exact same clothes you always are, so shut up.”

“Excuse you! I wear different clothes!”

“They all look the same, dude. I’m pretty sure Kanaya would cry tears of joy if you let her actually experiment with your look.”

“You’re wearing pajamas!”

“I died for these threads. I’ve earned the right to wear them for as long as I want,” Dave says.

You glare at him for a long moment, before nodding. “You know what, Dave? You’re right. I do need to change ‘my look’.”

“Thank God.” All at once, he looks concerned. “Okay, that was actually a really weird inflection in retrospect. What are you—”

You pull his cape off, throwing it over your head within the space of a moment. “It’s mine now.”

“Nope, no, back off, Jack. Give it over.”

You pull back. “No, you’re absolutely right. Pajamas are the superior garment. This is mine now, and never will I be parted from it. Like Chorda and Caipir, we share an adamantine bond. I am the pajama prodigy. It’s me.”

Dave groans. “Now I know I’m a different person from a few months ago because I actually know what the fuck you’re talking about. I wish I didn’t. Declaring that you’re in friend love with my cape is fucking weird as shit, Karkat, but here we are.” He tugs more insistently. “Do not pap my cape, do not make piles with my cape, do not pass go, and do not collect two hundred dollars.”

“I was making a comparison, you asshole.” You roll your gander bulbs and hand over the cape. “There. You’ve soiled it with your unique way of perverting even the purest concept anyone could possibly conceive. I don’t want it anymore.”

“You see, you say that now, but I’d bet a not insignificant amount of boonbucks that five minutes later I’m going to find myself minus one cape. Again. You’re like a cape magnet, dude. If only you’d use your powers for good.”

“It’s possible I might soon deliberate over the relative pros and cons of reclaiming the cape.”

“You’re not even trying to hide how much you’re using me for my clothing choices. You have the audacity to make fun of my duds, and then next thing I know you’re cuddled up in them like a koala.”

You grimace. “Isn’t that the animal that you said takes sustenance from eating shit?”

“Only as a baby, but hey, if the shoe fits.”

You give him your patented one-finger salute, before settling into a comfortable silence. It doesn’t take long for you to break it, as is your cosmically bound duty.

“Hey, Dave?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m glad. That you’re different from the other Dave, I mean.” You clear your windpipe. “I mean, he was fine. A festering asshole, but that’s nothing shocking, new, or interesting enough to write about in your human tabloids.”

“Karkat, I know for a fact that you had magazines in Alternia.”

“Why is every Dave in all of Paradox Space obsessed with never letting me finish a single fucking sentence?” Apparently, a Dave is a Dave is a Dave. “What I’m trying to say is that the other Dave seemed sad, and I’m glad you’re not as sad, and I’m thrilled beyond any reasonable belief that I might play a part in that, as incongruous as the idea seems, okay?”

Dave stares at you, and for a moment you nurture the irrational thought that he might be about to echo the words of that other Dave, and that maybe nothing bears any semblance of separation after all, and you’ve been expelling every single elucidated concept out of your ass this entire time.

But then Dave smiles and says, “Yeah. I think I got the better end of the deal, too.”

You flop back into the cushions, disguising your uninhibited relief by crossing your arms and huffing. “Yeah! Well!”

“Another rousing speech from Professor Vantas, doctor in applied pompous circumlocution.”

“You’ll have trouble circumlocating your cartilaginous nub if you keep that up,” you grumble, leaning back against him.

“I’m truly terrified.”

“As you should be. I am a ferocious and terrifying mercenary.”

“You sure are,” he says, flicking the side of your face.

You scowl at him. “I maintain the right to sacrifice you to the horrorterrors at any given time. There’s a slot in my captchalogue reserved for the altar, so you’d better prove your usefulness by putting in another movie.” You gesture at the abandoned monitor, languishing in its disuse.

“Well, seeing as you fell asleep during Good Luck Chuck, it seems that—”

You shoot off of the couch in record speed, then point an accusatory touch stump at Dave.

“Now I remember!”

“If you don’t remember Good Luck Chuck by now, there might be some problems.”

“Not that! The Dave in the dream bubble told me something _extremely_ interesting! Do you want to guess what it is?”

Dave looks at the wall. “Oh, well, you know how it is with different Daves. Different timelines, different scenarios. I wouldn’t pay much attention to anything he—”

“You don’t even like Good Luck Chuck!”

“Okay, now that’s a lie.”

“You only watch it to goad me into spewing absolutely justified outrage at this affront to cinema so you can sit back and watch the tirade unfold! It doesn’t even have any semblance of entertainment value for you!”

“To be fair, you really enjoy going on tirades, so it kind of evens out by entertaining both of us.”

“That’s not the point!” You glare at him for a moment long enough for civilizations to crumble into dust.

Finally, he sighs. “I’m sorry for making you watch Good Luck Chuck thirty-two times. And counting.”

“There,” you say with no small amount of satisfaction, “was that so hard?” You sit back on the couch.

He rolls his glance nuggets. “What movie do you want me to put in first?”

“Wherein a Highblood is Locked in Kismessitude with her Inferior Whom She Presumes to Be a Lowblood But is Secretly a Highblood; They Must Pretend to Be Moirails so That The Superior is Not Assigned to A Ship in a Further Quadrant; (But They Discover That Their Relationship is Actually Vacillating into Moirallegiance); The Vast Majority of Lines Could Be Construed as Humorous; Twenty-Three—”

“Karkat, please just point to the one you want. It’ll be faster.”

You grumble, but concede, sequestering yourself in the couch cushions. As soon as Dave flops back onto the couch, you reach for his cape and drape it over the both of you.

“Fucking called it,” he sighs, but he doesn’t pull it away.

He doesn’t pull it away for all one hundred and eight minutes of the movie, because within ten of those minutes he’s fast asleep, plastered against your side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [4/25/2016 1:07:39 AM] Air: STELLA HOLY FUCK  
> [4/25/2016 1:07:49 AM] Air: WE CAN DO A FUCKING MOBIUS STRIP  
> [4/25/2016 1:08:22 AM] Air: YOU KNOW HOW WE WERE LIKE HEY WE SHOULD MAYBE HAVE A BONUS CHAPTER ABOUT DOOMED DAVE AND DOOMED KARKAT MEETING  
> [4/25/2016 1:08:42 AM] Air: AND WE ALSO HAVE A CHAPTER WHERE KARKAT MEETS A DOOMED DAVE AND REACHES OUT TO HIM  
> [4/25/2016 1:08:52 AM] Air: AND ENCOURAGES HIM TO FIND SOMEONE TO TALK TO  
> [4/25/2016 1:09:09 AM] Air: “Hey Dave. Find someone to talk to. It doesn't have to be me - God knows I'd be a terrible choice actually - but just because you're dead doesn't mean you can't be. Happy.” THIS SHIT  
> [4/25/2016 1:09:21 AM] Air: STELLA DO YOU SEE WHAT I’M GETTING AT  
> [4/25/2016 1:09:36 AM] Air: KARKAT IS RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS OWN DESPAIR IN CHAPTER 2  
> [4/25/2016 1:09:44 AM] Air: HE SET THE WHEELS IN MOTION  
> [4/25/2016 1:09:50 AM] Air: WELCOME TO BACK TO THE FUTURE  
> [4/25/2016 1:10:18 AM] Air: TIME IS WEIRD IN DREAM BUBBLE LAND IT’S POSSIBLE  
> [4/25/2016 8:27:26 AM] Stella: SH I T  
> [4/25/2016 8:27:37 AM] Stella: WE PLAYED OURSELVES  
> [4/25/2016 9:38:48 AM] Air: WE PLAYED OURSELVES


	10. Prom night is a special night, especially if it happens four years early

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which There is a Relaxation of Boundaries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay this took about three times longer than usual to write, but it's also THREE TIMES LONGER THAN A uSUAL CHAPTER, so hopefully that evens out. We did it, kids. We heckin beat nanowrimo in two weeks.  
> Some unfun news: fic's gonna actually legit go on a little break, so I can write my last paper/sort out housing applications/maybe get a job - we're also gonna use that time to redo some of the doc, maybe, because apparently this is what happens when completely jump ship in terms of the doc. so yea! yea.  
> also, shoutout to chip  
> -Stella
> 
> We pulled an Icarus and flew too far from the outline on this one, which landed us in the sea of Ten Thousand Words. Or Nine and a half. Whatever suits your fancy. Anyway, the result is what you see before you. Hope you enjoy.  
> \- Air

After the last movie-night-turned-pendulant-nap-turned-movie-day, there’s some strange and nebulous shift in your relationship with Dave— the two of you seem to come to a mutual, tacit agreement that personal space is just... less of a thing. Boundaries become much more loosely defined, and he’s constantly pressed against you, or swinging his arm over your shoulder, or running a hand through your hair, or using you as a pillow, and it’s. Nice. Right now he’s curled up next to you on the couch, leaning into the crook of your neck while you read out loud some literature that isn’t irredeemable garbage (for once). It’s not the best book out there, but you can’t argue against a classic.

You’re deep into the scene where Poecea confesses that she’s been diverting the attention of the Imperial Drones for the past two perigees for her matesprit, and Betula, instead of turning her in, reassures her that everything will be alright, dispensing all the necessary shooshpaps. Right at the climax, just before Betula reaches out that papping prong, Dave says “Hold up, wait a minute; what now?”

“Betula and Poecea are moirails, apparently.”

“Huh. I thought they’d end up blackrom for sure.”

Finally! Fucking finally! Everyone you know brushes off this baseless, nonsensical development with 'It Makes Sense In Context Of Their Respective Narrative Arcs, Karkat,’ or ‘but theyre so cute together, karkitty!’ or ‘nobody care2, kk.’ Well! You care! And finally, _finally_ , somebody has the common fucking sense to see it from your perspective! “Right?” You turn to him with a grin, gesturing emphatically at the passage in question. “The buildup is completely—”

Dave takes off his glasses.

Dave Strider actually takes off his sunglasses, and you’re caught completely off guard.

“Holy shit,” he says, as if he’s the one who should be stunned, as if he has any right to be flabbergasted, as if he didn't just overturn the natural order of the world you know and flip it right on its axis— there it goes, spinning into the abyss with reckless centrifugal abandon. Maybe it’ll knock out whatever invincible asshole you’re supposed to fight while it fucks off into the endless void of the Furthest Ring.

Dave has red eyes.

They’re not entirely unpleasant.

You should probably say something.

“What?” You ask, after much too long a pause.

“In the three months, twelve days, eighteen hours, and twenty-seven seconds since I’ve started hanging out with you, this is the first time I’ve seen you smile.”

That can’t be right. Can it? You're pretty sure it’s not.

“So that’s ‘objectively right romance opinions’, what else is on the list? Do you really like chocolate? Do adorable cat videos tickle your smile gland? Wait, are you ticklish? Oh man, I hope you are.”

You can’t believe he just flipped off the once-immutable law of the universe while doing an elegant swan-dive right into the entropic boundaries of Paradox Space, and here he is, reveling in the incessant flapping of his lips like it’s just another night on the meteor. “Shut the fuck up.”

“And there it goes.” He flips his shades back down, leaning against you while pressing a theatrical prong to his forehead. “Killed before its time. Thousands mourn at this closed casket funeral. It’s a sad, sad sight, Karkat, trust me. Those tears are making the sixth ocean, and Earth ain’t got room for that water.”

“Earth is as dead as this analogy.”

“And now it’s double-dead. People are drowning. Sorry guys, that's my bad. They call me a cruel god, for I give life only to take it away.” He flops onto his back, across your lap, and clutches his chest. “They just can't bear the loss. How can I live with myself, knowing—”

Rose zaps in, and Dave sits up immediately.

“I thought I'd find you two here,” she says, as if she doesn't have ridiculous bullshit future sight whatever. Not to mention, it’s either the common room or Cantown, Lalonde. Not exactly a high-stakes gamble. You raise a prong to greet her, while Dave flails into some strange salutation salsa. It’s as hilarious to watch as it is incredibly mystifying— he starts a stiff wave, aborts it in favor of a pseudo-salute, and inexplicably flounders into the most painfully contrived finger-gun.

“Hey Rose. You did it. Here we are. Two dudes chilling. Just being bros.”

Rose gives him a long look, which promptly shuts him the fuck up. You don't know how she does it, but you’d sure love to shut him the fuck up. Without physical contact. You’re just going to cull that rail transport before you dig yourself too deep in the nonsensical, horrendous mire of inescapable, terrible thoughts because Rose is turning towards you, and like hell you’re going to be thinking about anything resembling the various ways there are to shut Dave up while she’s in the room.

“I was wondering if you could offer some insight into Kanaya’s aesthetic,” she says, thankfully bereft of any insight into your brief departure to hey, let’s not think about that again. “She designed a rather intricate and indubitably time-consuming ensemble for me.”

You don’t think you’ve ever seen Rose actually genuinely smile until right this second (so fuck off, Dave)— It’s been either placid indulgence, or an infuriatingly inscrutable smirk about how you know fuck-all about the situation while eldritch abominations have nothing better to do but shove their gratuitous appendages up their own horrorterror seed flap-equivalent and whisper actual fucking answers to the one person who delights in wrapping it up with enigmatic sparkledust seer drivel.

But here you are. There it is. The most tender, genuine smile you’ve ever seen, currently parking itself right on Rose’s face. Tonight’s the night for shocking developments, apparently.

“It was a gift obviously made with the recipient’s tastes in mind,” she continues, completely unaware of her contribution in making this the weirdest hour of your life so far. “I was hoping to return the favor.”

“This isn't going to descend into some passive-aggressive gift off, is it?” Dave, like the dense fucking douche he is, proceeds to gracelessly shove his entire frond pod down his chitinous windhole. You thought he was learning, but no, he’s still as wise in the ways of romance as a barkbeast is to its own ass. You’re about to tell him exactly that, when you notice just how disproportionately glacial the atmosphere has gotten.

There’s a set to Rose’s shoulders. “No,” she says, unusually terse, ushering in a second era of gelid colloquy. In this cold, barren expanse of apparently botched communication, Dave deals reacts to his own incompetence with his usual level of composure. He slowly starts to smother himself with a pillow.

“Fuck. Sorry. I’m sorry.”

You look between the humans for a long moment. “Could someone explain why Dave is shame-eating the furniture again? I know you two love excluding people from your incomprehensible parody of social interaction built _entirely_ on self-referential bullshit, the entirety of which makes sense to a grand total of _one whole other person_ —”

There’s a muffled sound of objection from underneath the pillow. “There’s nothing to get here. I’m just an asshole.”

“That’s a fair assessment,” Rose says.

“Anyway! If I could get to the point!”

“I do wonder about that on occasion. Circumlocution is a trait you two seem to share.” She raises an eyebrow, clearly waiting for you to get to the point, which is _what you’ve been trying to do,_ so now that you have her permission here fucking goes, you’re getting to the point!

“ _What was the subtext of that conversation?_ ” You ask, forcing it out before anyone can interrupt you another fucking time.

Rose stares at you, her mouth open.

The pillow falls off Dave’s face. “Oh my god,” he whispers.

Then both of them are laughing their asses off, and you’re standing there looking at them as Dave rolls off the couch, and Rose bends over _wheezing what the fuck is going on._

 _“_ What! The fuck! Is this a human ritual? I swear on the mother grub’s oozing, vestigial third oral sphincter that if this is another one of your human—”

“Subtext! You asked… holy shit, you asked _Rose,”_ he keeps pausing to laugh. “You asked Rose about _subtext._ How the turn tables.” He coughs, apparently trying to suppress another fit of laughter. “And I’m not even behind them. One hundred percent fucking Karkat Vantas. Holy shit, I need a drink of water.”

“Shut up,” Rose tries to snap, though it’s less than effective when she’s incapable of taking a breath from all the laughing _she’s still doing_. “You can’t be funny when I’m still mad at you, so shut your entire mouth.”

“As opposed to what? My half mouth? My three-eighths mouth?”

Why are humans like this.

“What was the _context,_ ” you say, stressing the word, “of the conversation. Why was Dave two seconds from being lucked-at to death, or whatever it is a seer of light even _does_.”

Rose collects herself, finally. “It’s nothing that you need concern yourself with, just a reference to some past antics of mine that were… in poor taste, upon reflection. I was operating under false assumptions, and I have some…” She pauses, a faraway look in her eye, seeming to search for the end of the sentence. “I have some regrets. I am making an effort to be more sincere, nowadays.” She looks at Dave, who has made the inexplicable decision to remain on the floor. “There are things best left in the past.” It’s a pointed remark, but you guess the aforementioned exclusivity is just constantly a thing, all the time, so whatever.

“So! Anyway!” It comes out more as a shout than anything approaching the vicinity of nonchalance, but Dave makes the valiant effort to portray yelling face down on the floor as a normal occurrence. “You were asking about how to woo your vampire girlfriend—”

“Does my appreciation for the kindness of a friend really need to indicate romantic intent?”

“Yep, and we should talk about that right now, immediately. Karkat, mic’s to you, don't steer her wrong. Only the finest advice from Doctor Love. I want my sister to have a date to write home about. Except don’t because I really don’t need to hear about it. Clear and defined boundaries, that’s the way to do it, just keeping all that personal biz to ourselves, locked up tighter than a nun’s chastity belt, which is why I should really shut up and not talk about this ever again.” He shoves his face back into the pillow.

“Well,” you start, ignoring Dave’s ridiculous wiggler antics and settling back into the couch, “she likes jade.”

Dave resurfaces. “Shit man, I didn't even know they talked.”

“The color, asshole. And of course they did.” Once again, it’s up to you to hike up Dave by his velvet pants and carry him all the way to Caught-Up Junction, a thankless task that’s essentially a full-time job. “They're both space players.”

“I never talked to ‘Let’s-Have-a-Corpse-Party-and-Play-With-Sharp-Rocks’ Time Troll.”

“I wish I’d had the chance to talk to her more,” Rose says, and, of course she’d be drawn to Aradia. Of course. “It’s a shame they don't appear to have a reliable wifi connection on the green sun.” She pauses for a moment, tapping her touch stubs together. “Would you say that Kanaya has a preoccupation with that particular shade because-”

“Rose, can you _not_ pull this psychobabble bullshit on your goddamn love interest.”

“That was not my intent. I was merely attempting to make a reasonable connection in order to gain greater insight into—”

“That is exactly what I said not to do. Do not pass go. Do not even think about passing go. If you even make a Freudian slip on a banana peel down a staircase in the vicinity of go, I will start yelling and never stop.”

“You've been spending too much time with Karkat, it appears.”

You’re certain, absolutely certain there will come a time when you won’t have to endure the endless migraines brought on by the last remnants of humanity. There has to be. You just have to clap your hands and believe really hard, because if you don’t have that beautiful delusion to keep you going, you are going to launch yourself into the nearest sun. “Look, Lalonde, frankly it doesn't matter _what_ you get Kanaya. You two are the only ones on the meteor who give a maggot’s writhing ass about anything related to fashion. We could take an inventory of every article of clothing that’s been alchemized on this rock, and we’d see the same story repeated ad nauseum! The classic literary epic of the neon dragon affront to anyone with taste, the perennial pajama protege’s aversion to anything not made of divine fabric, and Gamzee. You might run into some competition with Vriska, _maybe_ , because she at least switches between short sleeves, long sleeves, and her orange eyesore. A grand total of three, that’s right, _three_ unique outfits!”

Somehow— and by somehow, you mean: of fucking course— Rose doesn’t look the least bit consoled. In fact, she looks more troubled after hearing your reassurances than she did before.

“I don't want to pry—”

A loud scoff comes from the pile of Dave on the floor because he’s obsessed with digging himself into the trench of Unfortunate Decisions, helped by his inability to go two fucking seconds without some ongoing commentary. “That was the pillow. It’s an insensitive asshole, and is very sorry. Even if it’s remembering some very specific incidents, which don’t have a place in serious heart-to-hearts, so I need to just. Stop talking.”

It seems once again, it’s up to you to grab Dave by the cape and drag him away from the precipice of social blunders. “Dave, I know you have your headphones captchalogued. Use them.”

He doesn’t move for a minute.

“Dave.”

“Fine,” he agrees, the only show of sense he’s displayed since his ectotwin entered the room.

You wait until after he’s plugged into his music device, then turn to face Rose. Whatever this is, it’s important, and you’re going to treat it with the gravity it’s due.

“Impressive wrangling,” she says.

“What? Oh.” Come on, there’s something more important to consider here and it has nothing to do with managing damage control in Dave’s sad life. “It's not like he wasn't looking for an excuse to stop shoving his frond pod down his windhole anyway. You were saying?”

“I've noticed that Kanaya seems to have a rather complex relationship with Vriska.”

Well, that’s phrasing it much more delicately than you’d ever be able to.

“Old fucking news, Lalonde.” Even with your tender and intimate relationship with personal privacy, you don't feel any need to flagellate yourself about clearing the air of old gossip. “They were moirails, now they're not. End of story.”

“You wouldn't happen to know—” She cuts herself off. “No, never mind. This is a conversation better had with Kanaya, not behind her back.”

Good move, Lalonde.

“You could always make something with yarn,” you suggest. “Isn't that your thing? She likes sashes, so that's perfect.”

“Knit one of those double scarves. Like the animes.”

“The headphones were meant to be utilized, you jackass.”

Rose echoes your sentiment by reaching over for a pillow, and chucking it directly at her ectotwin’s head. “Thank you, Karkat. I think I will heed your advice and ignore Dave entirely, as he’s being a huge tool.”

“This is true,” Dave admits, muffled by the latest addition to his pile. “I’m going back in the toolbox. Just shove me in the bottom drawer, where people just dump all their loose screws— nope. No. You’re not allowed to say anything, Rose, we just talked about the psychoanalyzing thing.”

“It is truly astounding that I didn’t have to say anything at all. You’re making me redundant by shaming yourself, Dave. What am I to do without my once assured job security?”

“Yeah, sorry, you’re no longer up for tenure, Professor Brainiac.”

“How you wound me.”

“Don’t you have a sash to knit?” Dave asks. “Those take time, even with your bullshit magic knitting needles.”

“Well, I suppose time certainly isn't something I don't have enough of.” You can't even tell if she’s being sincere or sarcastic amidst the onslaught of double negatives, but whatever. Rose takes her leave, no doubt taking your incredible and fantastic advice to her alien blood pusher so she can be one step closer to actually making some progress with Kanaya.

Dave, apparently done with becoming one with the ground, clambers back onto the couch as soon as she leaves the room. “Thank god. The floor’s fucking freezing.”

“You could have gotten back up there any time you felt like it, you ridiculous bone bulge.”

“I was visibly repenting for my sins, like one of those kids from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. You gotta make do when you don’t have fifty oompa loompas on hand to sing about hubris. You gotta scrape together everything you got, like a high school stage manager. We may not be able to afford the set for the Bucket house, but maybe if we paint some cardboard boxes and stack them just right— brilliant, Jen, now we have enough money for Wonka’s hat.”

“A day will come when half of the excrement expelled from your chagrin tunnel isn’t comprised of obsolete references, and when that day comes, I will prostrate myself before the universe and heave my unending thanks into the nearest dream bubble.”

“That sure does sound like a thing that ain’t happening anytime soon,” Dave says, shifting his weight so that he’s closer to you. “Now uncaptchalogue the book, nerd. We need to see how far this pit of bad moirallegiance goes.”

 _Fuck yes_.

Twenty minutes later, you’re only three pages further into the novel because you both keep pausing to discuss how everything in the story thus far had clearly been pointing towards Betula and Poecea developing a blackrom. To be fair, it’s mostly you yelling and Dave throwing out extended metaphors about who the fuck even knows, and at some point he decides to be an invertebrate and just flop across you again, but still. It’s nice.

“Poecea kind of reminds me of Kanaya,” Dave mentions, which is incredibly appropriate in the most disastrous way possible.

“Kanaya had a pale crush the size of this meteor for Betula when she read this book. I’m pretty sure that’s the only reason she completely accepted that ridiculous bullshit.” It was almost as big as the flushed one she has on Rose, you don’t say, because you’re not an asshole.

Not that you have to, because Dave has a greater level of awareness than a concussed spleenfowl. “I can't believe how long it’s taking for them to start macking on each other. It's kinda painful to watch.”

“Unlike you, Rose obviously has some semblance of romantic timing.” But yeah, you’d wish they’d just get on with it.

“Obviously Rose needs to make a mixtape. Blast it from a boombox while standing right outside Kanaya’s door. Have the wailing of the damned overlaid with new wave synthpop echoing through the halls. Gotta symbolize the willing gift of self, after all— the playlist has to start with pure Rose, so it can segue into some emotional stuff about them together, and finish off with songs that are one hundred percent certified Kanaya. The perfect way to show that she knows, loves, and appreciates her. It’s an art passed down through the ages, as old as the eighties, which is to say time itself. Trust me. I’m the expert.”

“Well, her taste in music has to be better than yours.”

Dave lets out a scandalized gasp. “Don't think I don't see you tapping your foot when I play my jams.”

“You can't prove anything. I have never tapped a single appendage in my life. What the fuck is a foot?”

“Alright, wise guy. If you hate my tracks so much, why don’t you make your own and blow mine right out of the water. Call C4 and sink my battleship. Red pieces of plastic are everywhere. No one is spared.”

“Like I know how to use your unwieldy humantop.” Every time he brings it out, you get lost in the ludicrous amount of buttons scattered across its attachment. There’s at least five knobs, and you still don’t know which one controls volume.

Dave’s quiet for a moment. “Do you—” He takes a deep breath. “Do you want to learn?”

Once again, you find yourself launched into the capricious sea of Dave Strider’s unpredictable whims. “Seriously?”

“I’ve been less serious at funerals, Kitkat. Take selfies with the casket, kiddo, cause this is the last time you’ll be seeing— shit, that doesn't make it sound sincere.” He visibly collects himself and you can see how much effort it takes for him not to descend into an incoherent rambling mess. “The short answer is: yes. I’d love to open a jar of fresh jams with you sometime.”

And that sounds. Really nice, actually.

“Oh my god. Twice in one day. Maybe I actually am a god because this is a fucking miracle.”

“Don’t you talk about fucking miracles. We already have one devout fanatic on this meteor, and that’s one too many.”

“Welp, there it goes. I keep killing the smile. I only give what I take away, so you never really know what’s gonna stay. We restock faster than you can blink, with scowls on the shelves and smiles down the sink.”

Yeah, that’s enough of that. “You are _not_ rapping about any of my facial features, Dave. There will be no assonance, no alliteration, and none of your absurd meter.”

For a second, Dave goes still. “Ah, well, yeah, I mean—”

“It’s going to be hard enough getting a handle of that behemoth of a contraption, I don’t want you filling my nutrition plateau with more than I can shove down my protein chute. Any lyrical reference to any part of my body, and I’ll toss you into the void of space.”

Dave grins, and it’s such an open expression that you’re caught off guard _again_. Not that he notices. “I got it. Baby basics and one step at a time.”

“Don’t be a condescending braybeast. Just because _one_ of us had better things to do than-”

“Chill, I meant simple, not baby-baby.”

For a second you consider launching into a tirade anyway, but it’d just be a waste of energy. Instead, you elect to tug your touch stumps through the fine strands of his hair. “You’re still a condescending, nookscraping asshole.”

“Guilty as charged. Terezi hangs me at dawn.”

“Don’t even think about it. I didn’t put all that work into planning a party with your obsessively detail-oriented ectosibling just so you could miss the town hall inauguration. We’d have to go on without music, and I’ll let you guess what kind of horrors she’d send my way. Here’s a hint: one of the ‘terror’ variety.”

Dave stiffens, then groans, throwing his arm over his shades. “Fuck, Cantown party’s coming up, isn’t it?”

“Thanks for noticing, oh sentient clock.”

“I’ve been trying not to. Do you know what Rose said the other day? Some bullshit about how she’s gonna use Cantown to ‘map the development of my psyche’. This is a slow march to the gallows for me, Karkat. She’s gonna take out her notebook and jot down essays about how each mural is proof that there’s homoerotic subtext in every comic I’ve ever written.”

“Like there’s even the most infinitesimal hint of romance in that detritus.”

“Point is, I’m not sure I can go. I never even got an invitation.”

“You _made_ the invitations!”

“Sorry, while you’re going around pointing fingers and talking shit, I still don’t have an invite. Looks like you’re gonna have to make do with the soothing background noise of John Cage’s 4’33”.”

You don’t even dignify that with any question, any query, any request for clarification, you just wait for him to realize once again that inside jokes only work when people _know what the joke is_. He catches on fast enough, at least.

“Silence,” he explains, “I meant just, y’know, sitting awkwardly in silence and pretending that it was— anyway, yeah, I can’t do shit without an invitation.” Dave looks at you over his shades expectantly, being utterly transparent, and you can’t believe the hoops you have to jump through before he does anything remotely relevant to any measure of progress.

“I’ll make you a fucking invitation, you monumental wiggler.”

“Sweet. Can’t wait to hang it on the communal fridge.” He looks entirely too pleased with himself, and you resolve to make him the shittiest invitation you can possibly manage.

 

* * *

 

The Cantown Inaugural Celebration is, honestly, just an excuse for everyone to goof off together. Living on the meteor isn’t as terrible as initially anticipated, but the days and nights do tend to blur into each other in an endless slog of drudgery. Not that it’s actually work or unpleasant, per se— you just need something to break up the routine of your ongoing and endless movie marathon, something that isn’t using the bi-perigee meetings to draw human phalluses on Rose’s book. Such a major milestone in the development of Cantown is reason enough to celebrate.

So you make a big production out of it.

While you’re the one who sets it up, Rose is the one who actually organizes it— she knows what she’s doing, and the closest thing you ever had to a party was Aradia enthusiastically yelling about corpses right before she and Sollux fucked off into the sun. If you don’t count the times one or more of the other meteor inhabitants crashed your movie nights with Dave. Which you don’t.

It’s not until you help plan her gift that you realize her motives aren’t as altruistic as anyone untrained in the art of romance would think— she’s clearly looking for any opportunity to show off Kanaya’s present. You’d bet your entire movie collection that it’s because she wants to impress the troll in question.

After much finagling, she figures out to alchemize some weird libation. It’s just a tint too yellow for your comfort, and it looks vaguely familiar, but you don’t really care enough to figure out where you’ve seen it. According to her it’s a staple of parties and high society. It’s not like you would know about either of those, so you let her go wild.

Of course, the second that Kanaya is inevitably informed of Rose’s celebratory arrangements, the second that she hears of the barest _possibility_ of a party, she has her sketchbook out and is designing several potential outfits for every possible attendee. She extracts a promise from you that you’ll wear whatever she ends up making for you, and your only solace is that Kanaya cares about you too much to force you into sensory hell. You’re safe from the sinister confinement of tulle and stiff, unforgiving fabrics.

Terezi is probably the only attendee that genuinely just wants to see Cantown’s progress. She’s ready to pass long overdue judgement on how Dave handled the baton of municipal responsibility, and you’re almost certain she’s going to bring a gavel to deliver an official verdict. You wouldn’t put it past her to script an impromptu trial in case he’s deemed a corrupt official that’s out to purloin the coffers of Cantown’s already negligible budget. The image takes on too great a clarity for your comfort, and you make a note to remove all rope like objects from the premises.

So of course Dave alchemizes a plethora of dangling fabric made _specifically_ to hang from the ceiling.

“Why can’t you go one second without trying to poke a sleeping cholerbear,” you grouse. “Do you want this party to descend into a flaming, chaotic wreckage? Are you obsessed with the concept of self-sabotage? I’m begging you, please, let one of the few good ideas you have trapped in the fathomless oubliette of your fragile, calcium-based human skull _try_ to escape before it dies a slow and grisly death.”

Dave, once again, fails to recognize any potential consequences of his actions. “We’re getting our shitty cliché prom night on one way or the other, but I feel like it’ll go easier if I ask you why the fuck you’re making a big deal out about streamers so I can head this particular line of freakout fire off at the pass.”

“I don’t know why I’m continually surprised by your complete and total lack of judgement. How you’ve managed to survive past three sweeps is a complete mystery!”

“I wonder the same thing, dude, but that’s got jack shit to do with me turning this place into party city.” His decoration efforts don’t seem to measure up to whatever irrelevant Earth bullshit he’s trying to emulate, judging from the shake of his head. “Nah, not quite. I think they have those creepy cut-outs hanging around, and feather boas, and oh, shit, I need to alchemize this shit pronto.”

“That’s exactly what you’re _not_ going to do because if I don’t stop your asinine plot to ruin the party, Lalonde’s going to blame me. If she has to talk Kanaya through your idiosyncratic affront to humor at large, she’s going to make my life a living hell, and I refuse to bear the brunt of eternal suffering because _you_ wanted a feathered scalebeast.”

Dave stares at you a moment before laughing. “Holy shit. Never mind the fact that you were ready to accept that bird snakes are just a casual party thing— you would’ve let me make one if it wasn’t for Rose. Holy fuck.”

You throw your prongs in the air. “That is not the point, Dave! The point is that among the list of attendees is a ravenous justice fiend with a predilection for noose-tying, and you’ve decided that now is the perfect time to dangle physical temptation in front of her like you’re baiting a cat with a nibble vermin on a string. Who knows how long it’s been since she’s slobbered over His Tyranny with a fresh victim for the gallows; she’s probably been dying for an opportunity like this!”

“Dude. Karkat. Do me a favor.”

“I’m doing everyone a favor! Have you even _seen_ her hive!? She’d tie a noose out of shoelaces to hang Ambassador Berrybarf or whatever the fuck, and here you are, _enabling_ —”

“No, I mean just…” He places the end of one of the ‘streamers’ in your prong. It feels like paper. “Tug on it.”

You squint at him, but do as he says. It rips.

“See? More fragile than a tween ego the week before the school dance. That’s what these are made of: seventh grade hopes and dreams. They turn to dust as soon as you mention trigonometry.”

You stare down at the piece of torn streamer. You can’t believe this. Here you are, looking out for everyone’s collective interest, and this flimsy piece of shit doesn’t have the decency legitimize your concerns. You tear it in half. “Fine! You can have the celebratory miles of pseudo-murderous temptation. Don’t blame me if Legislacerator Pyrope decides to put us all on trial!”

“Thanks for trying to save me from the clutches of death, Kitkat.”

“Fuck you too.”

He tuts. “You are getting the order all messed around here, Karkat. That’s anachronistic as shit. Putting the Kark before the horse. Prom starts, _then_ we argue, then we get the dramatic reconciliation, then the shoehorned musical guest star rocks out so we can sell this whole teen drama. If the exclusive soundtrack doesn’t turn a profit, we’re boned.”

“ _You’re_ the shoehorned musical guest star.”

“Then the movie’s fucking saved because I am basically Orpheus reincarnated.”

“It’s Orphus.” Why does he insist on butchering every traditional name that graces his primitive aural canal. Or, wait a second. “I never read you that story.”

“I am ninety percent fucking sure we are talking about two different things here,” Dave says. “I was making a human reference to a dude with a lyre that goes to hell and fucks up.”

Well, he’s not wrong. But. “That is a gross simplification of the classic troll tragedy I was thinking of.”

“I’m not even surprised anymore. Y’all have troll Will Smith for god’s sake. I think a lot of your stuff just carried over when you made our universe, like old save data.”

“No, you see, that’s wrong because Alternian movies are far superior. There’s—”

“Structure. Cause and effect. Cornet Trompa’s well-defined ass.”

“You can’t use that against me; that novel is an outlier!”

“Karkat,” he says with infinite fucking patience, as if he’s talking to a particularly obtuse grub which, newsflash asshole, grubs can’t talk so fuck off, “you’ve hate-watched at least five ‘outlier’ movies with me in the past month.”

“And we haven’t watched a single good human movie, so Alternia remains superior.”

Dave tosses a roll of streamers at you. “Cool. You can demonstrate superior Alternian decorating techniques then.”

Well. You know exactly zero of those, but Dave’s not about to find that out.

 

* * *

 

The party hasn’t turned into a murder investigation yet, everyone appears to be enjoying themselves, and the meteor hasn’t barreled full speed into a dream bubble, so you’re going to chalk it up to a tentative success. As much of a success as any celebration can be when Vriska’s there. Of fucking course, she shows up an hour after the party’s in full swing, bursting in as dramatically as possible.

You promised Rose that you wouldn’t fight with her, though, so you’re determined to act as if she isn’t attending at all. Besides. You did basically just make up with Terezi, and throwing all that progress out the fenestral gap because spidertroll is a parody of herself is a shit idea even by your standards.

Terezi is flailing expressively while talking to the mayor, her dragon cape billowing out with every ebullient gesticulation, so you think she’s happy with the recent expansions. Kanaya had looked disappointed for all of two seconds when she caught sight of the cape, but she probably factored the personality of Terezi Pyrope into that design process, considering the matching accents on her formal wear. Kanaya, being Kanaya, probably accounted for everyone’s personality before even drafting the outfits. You can definitely appreciate the work she’s put into your own, among others.

You’re not about to walk up to her and start a conversation about it, though. She and Rose are meandering through the scenic park just adjacent to the majestic River Tab, named after the patron god of Cantown. It’s where you’ve thoughtfully placed some candles. And flowers. And a single bench, just barely big enough that a single human and a single troll could sit side by side, and that specific sizing took a lot of trial and error with the most uncooperative bilgesack this side of the Veil, so you hope they appreciate it. It’s the most transparent romantic maneuvering you’ve ever seen in your life, but they’re trying their best, so you figure you can afford to be obvious.

Since Dave is occupied with the music, and you have the adamantine strength of will to declare a ceasefire with Vriska, you have nothing better to do than examine the weird liquid Rose alchemized. There’s a caustic edge to its scent that settles at the back of your chute before you’ve even had a taste, but it’s also inexplicably fruity, so that’s promising. Tentatively, you take a sip, which turns out to be a mistake because it’s _really fucking bitter_. It feels like rotting compost doing a jaunty song-and-dance routine in your mouth, and it takes all your self-control not to visibly gag. Well! That was an altogether unpleasant experience with absolutely zero redeeming features, and now you’re stuck with a whole glass of it. You could… toss it into one of the potted plants? Except no, you’re pretty sure Rose can see you from where she’s indulgently listening to Terezi’s lecture; from what you can tell, it’s about the public arts project Dave’s stuck on the tallest building. So here you are. Standing around with a concoction of dubiously palatable imitation piss. The bubbling excuse for a beverage mocks you. You stare into the distance and, eventually, come to terms with your fate. There’s no way out of it. Time to swallow the rest of it in one gulp and get it over with.

“Whoa there, settle down. I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to just down a glass like that.”

You roll your gander bulbs and set the glass in question down among the rest, free from its ebullient burden. “Aren’t you supposed to be playing music?” Not that you need an answer to that question, because that answer is ‘yes, I have a duty that I committed to almost a perigee ago, and am now most definitely shirking it like an irresponsible prick’. Except, apparently that’s not his answer.

“This mix’s prerecorded, so I’m free for the next t-minus three minutes.” Dave tugs at the collar of his shirt, no doubt missing his holy pajamas. It’s weird not seeing him in the cape, but the black pinstripe ensemble (an inverse of your own) suits him in a way you wouldn’t have expected.

His sigh brings your attention back to what he apparently came to tell you. “I know Rose wanted to make things classy, but I don’t see much difference between this and spiking the punch bowl. Not to mention, we don’t have any clue how aliens even react to alcohol.”

“Poorly, because it’s bad. What’s this supposed to even taste like?”

“Weird grapes, I guess.”

“Well, that just fucking figures. Everything you guys drink is either gross, fruit, or both. At least the mayor was gracious enough to donate his stash of Tab— thanks to his generosity, anyone with functional taste buds can get an alternative to this swill.”

“Hey, apple juice isn’t gross.” Dave gives the beverage table a mournful look, as if it’s responsible for his state of deprivation. “God, I miss aj.”

“It’s juice from a fruit, so it’s still part of your collective bizarre obsession.”

“Fine, you caught us. We’re all pod people birthed from the mother fruit. We must consume our young to grow strong. Their flesh will sustain us, their blood will— y'know what? This joke was funnier before I remembered you eat stuff like ‘grubsauce’, and that my sister’s trying to date a vampire. What the fuck.” He shakes his head. “Anyway, I just came over to check that you weren’t gonna keel over and die because you drank Rose’s moonshine.”

“‘Moonshine’?”

“Moonshine, hooch, white lightning, bathtub gin,” he recites, as if providing synonyms that are successively more incomprehensible offers any semblance of context. He seems to pick up on your annoyance because he finally clarifies, “Illegal drinks. Also we’re not old enough to drink it, so I guess that’s illegal squared.”

“That’ll keep Legislacerator Pyrope entertained.” You _really hope_ Rose hasn’t alerted her to that bit of information. “Don’t let her hold Lalonde on trial, and we’ll keep casualties at minimum.”

“Better idea,” Dave says, “how about you don’t try any more of that, and we keep casualties at zero. ‘Sides, we shouldn’t really be keeping it around anyway. Never much saw the appeal of ineffectual teenage rebellion by liver failure.”

Wait a second. You’re starting to remember where you’ve seen something similar to the libation Rose had alchemized.

“This is the soporific,” you accuse. “The one from the terrible human vacillation movie.”

Dave raises an eyebrow. “What are you— oh, yeah. Yeah, pretty much. Surprised you remember that, actually. We watched that months ago.”

“I remember plot devices.”

“Of course you do.”

“It’s not working like it was in that movie.” Sure, you haven’t seen it in a while, but you remember. You remember the dancing. You remember the fighting. You remember the awful, awful vacillation. “Lalonde’s still acting with a modicum of dignity, and she hasn’t expelled the contents of her digestion bladder over anyone yet.”

“And hopefully it’s gonna stay that way for her and also everyone else here.” It’s weird, but you think this is the most concern he’s shown for Rose. Maybe you should keep a closer lookstub on her. “Man, this is supposed to be my break. Let’s just leave this alone and talk about literally anything else; now’s not the time to ask Rose what the fuck—”

“Why does every question you ask me tend to begin in such a manner?”

“Hey, Rose. I was gonna wait until after the party really, but if you’re sure you wanna throw down about this now...”

Rose laughs, which is. Unexpected.

Dave makes a pained sound. “Oh god, no. Please tell me you didn’t already get into the devil piss.”

“How refreshingly Texan of you,” Rose says. You still don’t know what the fuck Texas has to do with anything, but you’re beginning to think it means that Dave is part of the cowboy caste of human society.

“It’s less to do with growing up the land of a thousand demagogues and more to do with the fact that it’s maybe not the best idea to break out the booze when you’re trying to impress your date. Rose, why are you forcing me to be the voice of reason. I’m not Jiminy Cricket; I’m supposed to be the blue fairy, using my incredible DJ skills to make all your wildest dreams come true. You can’t be macking on your girlfriend to the sweet sounds of eighties glam rock if you’re sloshed.”

“It’s fine, Dave. I only had a little bit. Besides, the trolls seem unaffected.”

That’s because ‘the trolls’ have some standards to what they shove down their chute. While you weren’t so lucky, you’re pretty sure you saw Terezi dump her glass into a flowerpot.

Dave seems to have picked up on this fact, unlike his ectosister. “You’re the only one dipping into the rubbing alcohol you’ve brewed, and if this is a little bit, I think the Surgeon General’s gonna need to slap some content warnings on those glasses. You’re giggly. It’s weird.”

“I am having an enjoyable time and am in full charge of my facuilities.”

“Except last time I checked that wasn’t a word, but whatever. Just take it easy on the booze, okay?”

“I promise.” Rose, looking way more amused than any situation dictates, raises an arm. “Scout’s honor.”

Dave goes back to his music, leaving the two of you alone.

You would rather eviscerate yourself in front of the mayor before asking Rose what the fuck is going on, but there’s really nothing to talk about except what the fuck is going on. Some ancient abomination of the Furthest Ring must hear your prayers, because it isn’t long before Kanaya walks over. Which really isn’t that surprising, so maybe you’ll keep your gratitude for when they do something that deserves it. You should probably be cursing them, really, since Kanaya’s talking to Vriska. Who's also walking towards you. Because your life sucks.

“Nice party, Rose!” Vriska says, right in front of you, as if you weren’t preoccupied with setting this entire thing up for the better part of the night, but whatever! You don’t care about what Vriska thinks. Or, if you hypothetically _did_ care, it would be an infinitesimal amount that would be eclipsed by your desire to not be the worst friend in Paradox Space. What you’d really like to know is what she’s actually doing here when she has _certain responsibilities_ , but again, in the interest of keeping your shit firmly unflipped.

“I seem to recall that you are the one currently scheduled for lookout,” Kanaya points out, because she has the capacity to pick up on her bullshit without being blinded by endless misdirectional showboating, which is why she’s your favorite.

“Relax, I’ve got Gamzee on it. He’ll honk if there’s anything.”

Ah, Serket. Ever the epitome of responsible leadership. “Every time—” Rose shoots a look at you; it’s an indulgent, amused look, but it’s still enough to remind you that Kanaya is right there, ready to communicate disapprobation at a moment’s notice, so with some hasty mental editing you continue, “—I think that we’ll avoid plunging nook-first into a dream bubble at the worst fucking moment, _take a fucking guess what happens_ , so I hope that’s a loud fucking honk.”

“It should be,” Vriska says, shrugging. Way to look concerned. Really pushing the team towards success. It’s a pyrrhic victory, but at least your (justified) complaint is still laying there on the skillet, burning on one side, so it’s still a fucking victory. Take that, Serket.

While Rose and Vriska expel light nonsense, completing a closed circle of regurgitated knowledge, you turn to Kanaya. “So.” You’ve never been great at volume control, but you make an effort because this is important. “The sash is new.”

Kanaya glows just a little brighter, and you have to keep yourself from smiling. You’re glad she’s happy. Even if her crush is friendly with Vriska. There aren’t that many options on this meteor, and your ex-crush is _moirails_ with Vriska, so how the fuck can you judge.

“Rose was kind enough to make it for me,” she says. She lowers her voice. “I do not think she is used to making such gestures, and so it was… rather surprising. And not unpleasant.” She ducks her head. “Very pleasant, actually.”

It’s hard not to mirror the small grin she’s ineffectively trying to hide, so you don’t bother trying. “I’m glad you two are getting—” well, you can’t say ‘your shit together, finally’ because that’s probably rude, fuck, “—stuff worked out.”

“I would not say that we are yet on the same wavelength, but it does mean quite a bit that we are making reciprocal efforts to ensure mutual understanding.”

Good. Fucking good because Kanaya deserves that more than anyone you know. “I’m fucking ecstatic in the most sincere way possible. No bullshit or human sarcasm involved.”

Kanaya laughs. “Karkat, I know you believe yourself to be an inherently acerbic character, but I am aware that you would not make fun of me with regards to this. I would not have trusted you with the information otherwise.”

“Well,” you say.

Before you can follow it up with anything of value, Terezi barrels into the circle. “Why are you all huddled over here by the smelly juice, when you could be enjoying the majesty of Cantown?”

“Honestly,” Dave adds, walking over. “We didn’t build this up from a humble hamlet into a bustling metropolis just so you could ignore the sights. Smells. Various sensory inputs. This shit puts SimCity’s most extravagant DLCs to shame.”

“I still don’t understand why you give your wigglers games about architecture instead of having them build their own hives.”

“Yeah, but you also wanted to know why anyone would cull a sack when I tried to build a cul-de-sac, so.”

Rose contracts another case of the giggles, which just seems to be her default reaction to everything now, apparently.

Dave gestures for the Mayor to come over to the group. “Can’t do a tour without the Mayor. He’s the most important.” He clears his windpipe.

“The sights of Cantown are many and varied,” Dave says. “As you witnessed for yourself, the Tab River is a fucking wicked venue to jam out next to, being more romantic than one of Karkat’s terrible novels.”

“Nothing is more romantic than my _incredible_ novels,” you object, crossing your arms.

“It sounds less impressive without inflated hyperbole, but for the sake of avoiding Karkat’s wrath, let’s direct our gander nuggets to the main event of the evening: the newly finished Town Hall. Crafted out of one hundred percent whatever material all these cans are made out of, and the biggest time sink on this meteor outside of Karkat’s movie collection.”

“Why am I the standard for all of your comparisons?”

“Also, the Pyrope museum of Civil and Criminal Law is over there and stuff.” Dave gestures at a stately building close to the town hall. It’s incredibly conspicuous, because you and Dave made sure to paint most of it the eye-searing red that you could alchemize. Not to mention the banners of yellow caution tape draped across the structure. The mayor was very insistent on that aspect of its design.

Terezi stares at it for a long moment, long enough that you’re thinking maybe you should just get it over with and hurl yourself off the side of the meteor. Maybe you can pretend you have a shred of dignity left once you’re floating in the cold and endless void of space. But thankfully, it doesn’t come to that.

“I didn’t know you cared,” Terezi says, and it comes out like she meant it to be teasing, just a little bit of bite to it, but instead she sounds genuinely touched. As her friend, you do your duty and ignore the moment of emotional vulnerability.

“Please. We all know that Karkat cares too much about everything.” At this point you don’t know whether to take everything Vriska says as a compliment or an insult, so you flip her off on principle. She ignores your devastating retort. “I’m just surprised Coolkid went in for it.”

The mayor looks offended, which makes sense. Being the best, the mayor has good taste in associates and knows a heinous sentient pustule when he sees one. But his agitation doesn’t seem to be entirely from Serket exposure— he gestures at a building to his left, then points at Dave emphatically. You know you both figure out what he’s trying to say at the same time, because you let out a sharp bark of laughter just as he buries his face in his hands.

“Oh, this is interesting. What context are we missing here?” There’s a glint in Rose’s gander bulbs, and you’re sure she’s ready to whip out her notebook at any second.

“Chill out, it’s not what you think,” Dave says. “I don’t know what you’re thinking but whatever it is, it’s not that. In fact, it’s so far away from what you’re thinking that it straight up dropped out of existence. Descartes was right. Cogito ergo holy fuck there it goes. It’s gone and we don’t have to talk about it anymore.”

“No, I think this is very interesting. Pray tell: why are Karkat and the mayor so excited?”

“Oh, we’re just reminiscing about how the head architect for the museum,” you say, gesturing at Dave, “was infuriatingly pedantic about getting every detail just right.” Dave shoots you a betrayed look, but you’re not going to let that stop you. “He was also _insistent_ on the exact specifications of constructing Lalonde Lane and the Maryam Building of Getting Shit Done.”

“What about me?” Vriska asks, putting her prongs on her hips. “Or were you both too intimidated to try capture my essence in your architectural waste of time?”

Oh, you’ve been waiting for this. “Remember what wasn’t at the intersection of ‘Vriska’ and ‘Serket’? Well, there’s something there now.” You don’t even need to walk them over for them to see the precarious structure that shoots over the cityscape like a gargantuan middle finger thrust into the abyss, but you think you’ve held back enough that this is an acceptable amount of pettiness. You guide the group towards the intersection, where there’s an ostentatious plaque embellished with the finest shitty pseudo-gold paint that you could alchemize. In bold, capital letters, painstakingly embellished with just enough obnoxious accents to shove it to the very edge of legibility, are the words: ‘Her Ego’.

She scrutinizes the monument, then shrugs. “Eh. Could use a little work. It needs to be bigger,” she says, which is exactly what you were expecting, but that doesn’t stop you from marching up to it and giving it a thorough examination from where Vriska was standing before you shoved her out of the way. After much deliberation, you kick it over. It doesn’t actually cause damage to Cantown proper— there’s a very specific reason it stands at the outskirts of the city, and that reason happens to be that you do this whenever Vriska pisses you off, which is all the time— but it does send a mass of cans sprawling every which way. Turning to Vriska, you clap your prongs together.

“Your feedback is appreciated, and will be taken into consideration by the civil planning committee.”

 

* * *

 

The moment that cleanup is insinuated, everyone promptly fucks off.

Well. That’s not true. _Vriska_ promptly fucks off, dragging Terezi with her for whatever important bullshit they absolutely need to do right that second. It’s either a moirail thing, which you’re definitely not sticking your cartilaginous nub in, or it’s more endgame tactical bullshit, which you couldn’t care about if you spent the rest of your life trying to muster up a single fuck to give.

Kanaya offers to help, but you see how she glances at Rose, and out of the kindness of your pump biscuit you insist that she needs to fuck off too. So it’s just you and Dave taking down the decorations and tidying up while the mayor fusses about, sweeping the streets with the most adorable little broom you have ever seen in your fucking life.

There’s some faint music playing as you work; it’s nothing like the tracklist at the party, more ambient noise than anything else, but it’s soothing, and it gives you something to tune into while cleaning up the remnants of “Her Ego”. Once you finish up with your portion of the mess, you walk over to the mayor to see if he could use any help. He politely refuses and shoos you away, and you can’t really say you’re complaining.

It doesn’t take long to find Dave— you spot him by his setup with a pile of streamers, staring down as if the various knobs and sliders spell out the meaning of life, which is concerning. It always throws you off when he checks out of the present. Luckily, he looks up when you approach and seems to come to himself. Whether it’s an expressive gesture or an attempt to focus, he shakes his head. “I can’t believe it. My first prom and I didn’t even get to dance.”

“Nobody danced. And besides, who would you even dance with? Vriska?”

“You have no romance in your soul, crabpuff. Your poor DJ didn’t get the chance to cut a rug at the most important social event of his middle school career—”

“Your ridiculous human “prom” doesn’t even happen then; even I know that.”

“—and this is the sympathy he gets? Do you really want to be responsible for single-handedly ruining my prom experience? That’s not just something a guy can recover from. Shit’s traumatic. Thirty years from now I’ll be thinking back to this exact moment when all my prom dreams were crushed under the heel of cold, hard reality. When you wish upon a star, your dreams die—”

You pull him towards you.

For all his circuitous babble he doesn’t seem to actually expect you to indulge any of it, and honestly, neither were you. But if this pointless ritual of awkward shuffling means so much to him, then fine.

He stumbles into you and you catch him by the waist, a little closer than you were actually anticipating. From here, you’re close enough that you can almost see his eyes through his shades; you feel his breath ghost against your cheek, and the thrum of his pulse seems to beat in tandem with your own. It’s impossible because your blood pusher is different from his; they each beat at their own rhythm, following the patterns dictated by your disparate biology. Still, in that moment, it’s like they’ve come to some mutual agreement to match the cadence of the music.

There’s a breathless moment where neither of you move. Somewhere in the back of your mind you can’t help but think the swelling crescendo of music as a nice touch, a directorial choice you’d approve of. You’re sure if you were watching this exact scene, you’d be enthralled by the buildup, the moment of suspension as the orchestral euphony comes to a climactic halt for the realization of—

You drop your head to his shoulder.

“Do you ever shut up? Are you physically capable of blocking the unnecessary stream of garbage constantly spilling out of your mouth?”

“You know I can’t.”

Ironically, he doesn’t say anything after that. He also doesn’t move away, electing to drape his arms loosely over your shoulders, and the two of you sway to the remainder of the song in a comfortable silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [4/29/2016 8:26:52 PM] Stella: everyone else is not being distracted by being disasters, and can support them  
> [4/29/2016 8:27:44 PM] Stella: instead of being preoccupied with their own biz  
> [4/29/2016 8:27:44 PM] Air: What you’re saying is everyone deals with their issues earlier in retcon timeline and therefore is more supportive and get to healthier places earlier  
> [4/29/2016 8:27:50 PM] Air: which frees up more time to be gay  
> [4/29/2016 8:27:52 PM] Stella: YES


	11. Intermission: Weeks in the past, but not many…

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which We Take It Back Now Y'all

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, we're back, and we brought an intermission. Before you dive in, however, please be advised that there is some mild internalized homophobia/biphobia right from the get go.  
> \- Air 
> 
> I love the fact that we're breaking our hiatus with an intermission. Anyway, as you can see, we're back! I think. My laptop charger died halfway through finals and I've had to alternate between camping at a friend's room and writing everything from my phone, but here we are. The next few chapters are gonna be a doozy, so, no idea what the update schedule's gonna be like. But until then, hope you enjoy this intermission :V  
> \- Stella

Dave Strider isn't gay.

Not that there’s anything wrong with being gay. It’s just a fact of life. The sky isn't green. The grass isn't blue. Dave Strider isn't gay. It’s something he’s never had to think about; he likes girls, therefore, no homo, Q.E.D., pack it up boys, nothing to see here. So what if he can appreciate the occasional dude face? It’s not gay, people can be objectively attractive; there’s the golden ratio whatever shit, that's a thing that exists. So what if he happens to be getting particularly close to a pal of the male persuasion? There’s nothing gay about getting used to actually having a chum to pester from the same side of the screen; a dude friend just happens to be the person he’s spending the most time with.

So what if he’s pinning that same dude friend to the couch and thinking how easy it’d be to maybe kiss him right on the mouth, except he’s not because what the fuck, where did that thought come from, definitely not Dave ‘Heterosexual’ Strider no siree, wow, that was certainly something that didn't just happen.

This is, of course, the perfect time for his ectotwin and her vampire girlfriend to zap in. From his vantage point of _still pinning Karkat to the couch_ , he gets a front row seat to the mutual eyeballing that happens. It’s like being in a car crash and seeing the faces of the horrified onlookers in obscene detail, but also in slow motion, which means whoever has the car is getting the same treatment. Dave has the car. He doesn't know what his face is doing right now, but he’s sure everyone’s getting an eyeful.

Kanaya and Rose don't even have the decency to arrive mid-conversation; there’s just an endless stretch of silence as everyone in the room parses their position relative to everyone else, and he gets to see every change in expression as the situation percolates through the Freud Filter like the world’s most willfully obtuse mug of emotion coffee.

Falling onto the floor isn't a fit of clumsiness. It’s an act of self-preservation under the threat of Rose Lalonde’s omniscient, petrifying smirk. Staring too long into that abyss leads nowhere but the darkest pits of hell, where feelings exist, up is down, and any attempt to escape is just pissing in the wind.

Now that Karkat isn't being draped over like a clothesline on a nice spring day, he promptly fucks off, yelling about the blackboard he’s going to make, which, fuck. It’s bad enough to be caught by his sister— caught doing _nothing_ , that is, because _nothing happened_ — now he’s going to be subjected to Karkat with a full-sized blackboard at his disposal. This can't get any worse.

Which, of course it does, because Kanaya glances towards the transportalizer and says, “I should see what he is up to,” before going to do just that. Why does she have to be so responsible and caring? Weren't trolls supposed to be dicks? It’s great she’s such a good friend, but fuck, now there’s no buffer between him and the heavy weight of Rose Lalonde’s oppressive judgement.

With Karkat gone and Kanaya soon after, the common room feels emptier than it ever has. An impressive feat, considering it used to be a barren, hostile expanse of utilitarian design; the standard of lighting was whatever dim glow made its way out of the trolls’ computers, and the only ornamentation that broke up the broad plane of absolutely nothing was a pile of...bicycle horns? Also there were some _pretty concerning_ stains which, knowing about weird troll blood, drop-kicks ‘pretty concerning’ all the way to ‘frankly terrifying’. Touchdown. Luckily, it took Rose all of one day to kill that weird murder-room vibe by shoving furniture at it like a fanatical realtor right before open house; that is, if any realtor had bad enough taste to shove plush rococo shit around a concrete bunker and throw ridiculous tapestries over most of the aforementioned stains. The trashy troll romance novels strewn about add a certain personality to it. Really contributes to the decor.

The entire room, rococo shit and all, is silent now. Dave doesn’t move from the floor. Rose is not winning this one, no matter what. He will stand— or, lie— his ground on this. He will not make an absolute ass of himself when Rose is right there and ready to skewer his brain with her knitting needles, examine its mush, and use its gooey remnants for some thesis no one will ever even read. No, he’s not going to give her any material— his mouth is shut tighter than the last jar of pickles buried in whatever desecrated garbage dump still remains on Earth.

Determined, he turns over onto his back, sees her expression, and immediately ruins everything because that fucking figures. “Shut up.”

“I didn't say anything,” Rose says, eyebrow arched.

“Alright, that’s probably the most cliché bit of dialogue that’s ever happened in the history of the known universe. Ultimate sibling dynamic is a go. Glad we’ve got that established, maybe we’ll be able to beat the Harley-Egberts in the Grand Twin Tourney and I’ll finally have a trophy to put on my shelf. Don't let me down Rose, there’s literally two teams left in all of Paradox Space to compete so we’ve got a fifty-fifty chance. We’re gonna have a hard time maintaining that lead since John lives off of tired tropes and recycled one-liners, but I think if we really work for it, we might have a chance.” This is great, this is safe, all he has to do is steer clear of anything remotely approaching emotional vomit and he’s home free—

“You’re the one who appears to think there’s something I should comment on. Clearly, you have something to get off your chest.”

Fuck.

“And here comes the psychobabble. Someone page the ethics board because I have a complaint.”

“Dave.”

“Good luck holding onto that license, Rose. We’re putting this whole operation on pause to review your practices. The minutes of Lalonde v. Meteor will be under scrutiny for years.”

“I really don’t think you have the necessary standing to bring this to court.”

“There’s no federal law in space. Just the cold stare of justice. The cold sniff of justice? Terezi. There’s just Terezi.”

“And Alternia has so very often demonstrated its condemnation of malpractice.” Rose rolls her eyes. “Dave, I’m not going to pressure you to disclose anything you don't want to.”

“Sure you’re not.” Her modus operandi is a lot more insipid than peer pressure; Dave’s seen the after school specials, he could handle that. No, what Rose does is a lot harder to combat. “You’re just going to poke, avoid the subject, poke again, and then smile to yourself when whatever word vomit falls out and confirms your hypothesis that I’m suppressing secret gay thoughts in some new and creative way, like trying to shove a plastic tarp over Old Faithful and hoping that if I sit on the top, it won’t blow me sky-high.” Dave turns over onto his stomach. “Well, guess what. This tarp is rock fucking solid and I’ve always wanted to fight a geyser, so good luck.”

“You realize that you’ve inadvertently acknowledged that there is, in fact, a geyser.” Rose’s voice is understanding, which makes it worse. If she was really going to be considerate, she could’ve just let it slide.  

“It’s _figurative_ ,” is the only retort he can come up with, which is pretty piss-poor in terms of any verbal aegis he could construct. He’s wasted all his words making fun of a terrible book with Karkat, and now he’s left as defenseless as a baby deer before the pretentious headlights of Freud driving a penismobile.

The driver of this particular vehicle swerves around the potential roadkill in an astonishing show of mercy. She steps over his prone form, and settles into the couch, posing in the most stereotypical therapeutic patient pose possible. It’s a show of irony that almost makes up for all the analytical strongarming she’s put him through. “I’ll let you in on a secret, Dave,” Rose says, solemn and grave. “That’s what psychoanalysis is all about.”

Should he be suspicious? Rose isn't one to ignore a mass of tangled brain matter ripe for dissecting, especially not when it’s basically handed to her on a silver platter. But, instead of going back to his astonishing ability to crash headfirst into a web of conversational catastrophe ( _secret gay thoughts, fucking seriously?)_ , she just lets out a sigh.

“I only want to help you, Dave, whether you believe it or not.”

It’s strange how some part of Dave actually does. Maybe she really is trying to look out for him, in her own misguided, ineffective, unnerving way. Maybe she’s showing sisterly concern in the face of her brother’s apparent unforeseen preoccupation with blackboard-motivated couch wrestling. But that doesn't mean he’ll be any more cooperative.

“Look, just because you got a girlfriend first doesn't mean you’re the love guru— I'm pretty sure Karkat would pitch a fit. He can’t lose his job security in this economy.” And again, Dave ‘Constantly Choking on His Own Foot’ Strider manages to launch the conversation in the exact opposite direction of any favorable destination. Fucking incredible.

Rose seems to share this sentiment, because she slowly sinks her head into her waiting hand. “Here I am, so generously overlooking your insistence on clawing at the sides of the conversational pit of errors, and yet, with every passing moment, you seem to dig yourself into a deeper trench. Should I focus on the fact that you’ve already categorized this interaction as ‘love advice’ despite a dearth of romantic context? Or should I point out your immediate impulse to involve Karkat in a conversation he ostensibly has no place in?”

“I’m not gay,” Dave says. Rose does that weird nose sigh thing that communicates all of the disdain of a bull with three PhDs, and he backpedals. “Like, being gay is great, I’m sure you have fun with it. Have a gay old time. A celegaytion. Fuck, that was bad.” He lets air hiss through his teeth. “Point is! Being gay is fine, but that’s not me. I’ve liked girls. Girls are great.”

“I’m aware that girls are great.” There’s a note of smug amusement in her voice, which is a fucking relief. Maybe that's where this conversation ends; not with a bang, but with the mutual agreement that girls are the shit. Unfortunately, it looks like Rose has other plans. Dave can tell she’s trying— and failing because fuck that— to make eye contact as she says, “This crisis of sexuality would go a lot smoother if you realized that you aren't limited to a binary of attraction.”

“Okay, first of all, there isn't any crisis so you can take your guidance counselor routine and file it away with the rest of your roleplay dream jobs. Second, duh. We’re probably the only people on the meteor that consider…” well, now it’s not exactly _normal_ shit when humans are outnumbered two to six, so all that really describes it is, “...that kinda thing. Also Kanaya. Maybe. Do you think trolls can be lesbians? Or is it the Alternian equivalent to having a type? Like only dating redheads and shit like that. Well, she’s enlisted anyway. She’s joined the ranks. You, Kanaya, and me, I guess we’re the exceptions to the rule. We're the three musketeers, except two-thirds are making out. I mean, that might have happened, actually, I didn't read the book. Did anyone read the book? Maybe it doesn't even exist. It was lost long before Earth was, taken by the void for nefarious purposes. The horrorterrors want to learn about French and friendship, and who are we to deny them?”

“It isn’t a bad thing to like multiple genders, you know.”

Dave groans. “Rose, can’t you ever just do me a solid and let me change the subject?”

“Is it really ‘a solid’ if it isn't doing you any favors in the long run?” According to that rhetorical question, no. It’s not. But Rose can take her literary devices and literally eat them.

“Look,” Dave says, scrubbing at his hair, “I know it’s not a bad thing. It’s just not a me thing. Me and all that stuff are on two separate ends of the universe, just doing our own thing. We respect each other for the shit we do, but our paths do not intersect. We’re drawing asymptotes here, Rose. Do not hit the origin, do not pass go, do not cross the X axis.”

“Why not?”

“It’s math, Rose, that’s just how—”

There’s a flash of _something_ across her face, gone as quickly as it comes, but it’s enough to startle Dave out of his incipient ramble. Rose is second-best at the ancient art of poker face maintenance, and that brief lapse in control is enough to shut him up. “Have you ever thought about it?” she asks, challenge clipping her words. “Have you actually sat down and examined how you feel?”

“No, see, that’s _why_ it’s not me, because I’ve never had to think about it.”

Rose sighs. “That’s not— no.” She closes her eyes, then finally, _finally_ switches tracks on the conversational planning railway. Kind of. “I can't say I understand completely what you’re going through, but I can imagine what you’ve internalized. Luckily, I have always been adept at telling you when there is bullshit afoot.” Ah, Rose. Her adroit use of vernacular is paralleled only by her ability to adapt to another’s. Dave can't stop the snort that escapes him, and damnit, by her answering smile she definitely takes it as a victory.

“If you _do_ find yourself with unfamiliar emotions, there's no harm in seeing where they lead,” she continues. “Earth is gone. The only thing left of it is what we want to preserve. Why not preserve what makes us happy?”

It’s not the shittiest thing Dave’s ever heard, and it’s definitely not the worst counsel he’s ever received. Even if Rose is completely off-base in thinking he needs to hear it, it’s not bad advice.

“And if what makes you happy is plastering yourself over Karkat in a gratuitous display of fumbling romance—”

Well, looks like it's time for Dave to grab the pillow next to him because the most painless method of escaping this conversation is by smothering himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [5/6/2016 6:37:41 PM] Air: i’m laughing  
> [5/6/2016 6:37:43 PM] Air: stella,,,  
> [5/6/2016 6:37:54 PM] Air: we updated so fast that it took less than a week  
> [5/6/2016 6:37:55 PM] Air: to get a  
> [5/6/2016 6:38:02 PM] Air: “are you on hiatus” message  
> [5/6/2016 6:38:12 PM] Air: we REALLY are the homestuck  
> [5/6/2016 6:38:46 PM] Air: complete with intermissions that jump three chapters into the past  
> [5/6/2016 6:41:17 PM] Stella: It's us


	12. Shame-eating furniture continues to be a staple of human dietary habits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which The Only Jam is a Platonic Jam, Which Might Make it a Preserve, Actually

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, friends. Before you start reading, please be aware that this chapter deals with in-canon abuse of alcohol.  
> On a lighter note, please appreciate Stella's dedication to this fic. Her computer charger recently died, and so all of her contributions have been made via the google docs app on her phone. Her abilities truly amaze and astonish.  
> \- Air
> 
> Sometimes when I think about canon things in Homestuck I get really sad. It's like a reflexive emotional reaction, wow, that sure was a sad thing that happened hmm I guess it's time to consider that character's perspective in excruciating detail for no discernible reason and do the equivalent of punching myself in the face. Anyway, I didn't actually write the line but shoutout to Benedict, you'll know it when you see it. Now let's all give a hand to Air, for coding the heckin memo my god they're strong  
> \- Stella

Dave starts to spend a lot more time with Rose.

It doesn't cut too much into your together, but there’s a lull in your usual movie nights with him and a sharp hike in storytime with the rest of the meteor crew. You don’t like to speculate— except you absolutely do because you’re always right— but you think the sudden shift in behavioral trends is probably so Dave can keep an eye on Rose’s soporific experimentation without actually having to talk to her about it.

Sometimes she brings along a glass of the putrid swill to your literary summits, offering commentary much more frank and lurid than her usual meandering interjections. Instead of infuriatingly vague circuitous babble designed to pick apart the psyche of everyone in the room, she comes out and says what she means. It makes her more approachable and more openly charismatic, but at the same time you're kind of weirded out. Rose had grown on you in the unfortunate, fungal manner that seems to epitomize humanity in general, and it’s a bit off-putting to see such a drastic change. You don’t know how to deal with it, so. You don’t.

That’s why it’s not necessarily a bad thing that you haven't been alone much with Dave. After all, it’s great that someone with some actual context can handle… whatever’s going on with Rose, since you know fuck all about what’s up with that. Without his hovering and his prodding and his unspoken apprehension, it probably would've flown clear over your puzzle sponge.

There’s also the added bonus of having time to think. You don't do a lot of that when he’s in the room. Or maybe you do it too much, but about the wrong thing. When you’re with him, all you can really focus on is the… well, it’s not distance, really, you haven't drifted apart at all; it’s more like you’re both stuck in limbo, and neither of you know whether to take a step forward or a step back, making it the most immensely draining emotional stalemate you’ve ever experienced, which is hilarious, because _nothing’s happening_. Thinking about the effort it would or wouldn’t take to move even an _inch_ in either direction keeps you from figuring out where that inch might take you. You’re almost halfway to maybe considering your future self as a viable soundboard, which really shows how desperate you're getting for even an echo of a fragment of a _hint_ of fucking clarity in this… thing.

Long story short, taking some time to yourself is fucking great.

But.

You still miss seeing the way Dave acts when it’s just the two of you. You miss curling into him, letting his incessant chatter wash over you as human Dane Cook performs his agonizingly asinine antics at three times the speed of intended viewing, and fuck, when did you become so dependent on Dave that you pine pathetically even when you’re in the same room?

Which is why it’s kind of a relief when he pauses in the middle of stacking the foundation for Cantown’s first opera house to ask, “So, you still up for that jam sesh?”

“Sure,” comes out of your chute before you even process what he’s said. He could've asked if you wanted to launch yourself into the nearest sun and you would've just cheerfully agreed. Get it together, Vantas. You want to say you’re better than this, but you’ve always been a shit liar. Except he doesn't even try to hide his pleased little grin at your (embarrassingly) expeditious response, and you can’t even hate yourself for how great it feels to be responsible for that.

Dave has most of his equipment captchalogued already, but the suggestion of setting it up in Cantown leads to a ten minute ramble about fragile human ligaments and how “trying to mix when your setup’s on the floor leaves you hunched over and crying because your back feels like a slinky looks, your butt’s sawing so many logs it’s ready to build a house, and your wrist’s on its way to court to sue you for alimony.” So you say your goodbyes to the mayor and head off to one of the many sparsely-furnished side rooms.

What you're not expecting is for someone else to be there.

Rose is lounging at the table in an ensemble you haven't seen before. It follows the color scheme of her divine pajamas, but it’s definitely on the opposite end of the finery spectrum. She looks like she’s ready for Cantown’s inaugural festivities take two, even though that's not scheduled for at least another few perigees. She also seems to be hitting the soporifics a lot earlier than usual, by your own inaccurate estimation of time; Dave would know the specifics, but you’re not an insensitive mass of corroded social mores, so you don’t ask.

By the set in Dave’s shoulders, he’s not entirely pleased by this development. “‘Sup Rose,” he says with deliberate nonchalance, and it’s a bit jarring to hear his voice so at odds with the rest of him.

“ _Hey_ ,” is how she greets you, dragging out the word for an uncomfortable amount of time. “It’s Save and Karkat! Dave! Not save. Whoops.” Rose lets out a giggle, propping up her head with her folded hands. “There are worse verbal typos I could make. I could be slipping in the Fr—” She purses her lips. “Fuck. Freud. Freudian slips. Prunumciation is...” She waves a hand as if that’s all that’s necessary to communicate what, exactly, ‘prunumciation’ is. Which. You understand nothing so great job with that. “At least it’s not French. No one can say French except the French, and even _they're_ weird about the Frenching of the words.”

Even without knowing what the fuck she’s talking about, you’re pretty sure there wasn't a shred of coherency in that sentence.

“Right.” Dave shoves his prongs into his pockets. “Well, me and Karkat were planning on mixing some tunes, but if this is where you’re meeting Kanaya—”

“No, no, nonono no no, don't let me get in the way! You just do your musicing and I’ll do my sitting and Kanaya will do her Kanayaking and everything will be fine!”

You glance at Dave out of the corner of your lookstubs, and you think he does the same behind his shades, but he shrugs and takes out his setup anyway. He plugs in his electroacoustic transducers, handing you one of the ends. It fits weirdly in your aural canals, but it stays in, so whatever.

“Okay, so there’re a lot of different ways to mix, but most all of it involves using samples. There’s shit like garageband or fruity loops—”

Rose snorts, and Dave pauses his explanation to shoot her a look. “What?”

Now that she doesn't have to hide her snickers she sets them free, letting them fill the air with reckless abandon. “It’s nothing! The names are just… they sure are that.”

“Yeah,” Dave says. “I guess.” He shakes his head, then turns back to you. “Anyway, the computer’s essential because it lets you do the bare minimum of mixing without the rest of your setup, and it helps you configure and map samples on hardware like sequencers and midi fighters, which—”

Rose laughs so hard that she begins to wheeze. “Do they— do they fight with the samples? Midi fighters, oh my _god.”_ She hunches over the table, trembling with unrestrained amusement. “Mixing is so violent!”

“ _Anyway,”_ Dave says, struggling on, “the setup itself can look kind of overwhelming, so maybe we should take a break with the terminology. It’s really just a matter of familiarizing yourself with the equipment, so like, go ahead and give it a spin.”

The tutorial so far has been a deluge of information, which means you haven't really learned anything. But, you figure that even you can’t break something just by touching it. You do, in fact, give the turntables an experimental spin, and Rose fucking loses it.

“Shit, you are so fucking hammered.” Dave buries his hand in his hair and lets out a sigh, which comes out more a sound of frustration than anything approaching resigned. “How strong did you even make that stuff?”

Rose stops laughing for a moment, then immediately starts again. “Sorry, sorry! Uh, whoo, It’s… pretty strong, I guessh?” She hiccups. “Whup. Guess.”

“Pretty strong.” Dave stares down at his computer, his mouth a firm line. “Rose, I’m pretty sure you bootlegged some fucking rubbing alcohol.”

“Overreact much? I’m ferpectly pine. Perfuckly fine. Karkat, tell him I’m fine.”

Here you are, trying to camp out at the intersection of Not Your Business and Inactive Bystander, and she just dropkicks you directly into the alien streets of Personal Involvement. “I’m going to reserve my judgment until you’re lucid enough to actually process anything I say without launching into a gigglefit.” That’s a safe answer, probably.

“The giggles donut negate my lucididity.”

You shoot Dave a look, hoping he’ll interpret it correctly as ‘please save me from having to communicate with your ectosibling when she’s under the influence of her unnerving soporifics’.

He seems to receive the message because he pulls his usual conversational about-face. “Shouldn't you be getting ready for your date?”

“Is it? A date?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“ _How,_ ” she drawls in her increasingly characteristic slurring, “d’ya figure? It’s that.”

Dave takes in a deep breath, then lets it all out at once. “Rose.”

“Dave.”

“Okay, no. This is as transparent as a couple of teenagers in the fifties making goo-goo eyes over a milkshake at the hottest sock hop in town. Rose. Look at yourself. You’re wearing a prom dress and nervously drinking your ass off while waiting for Kanaya to arrive, and what could she possibly be picking you up for? _A goddamn date_.”

It’s the first time you've seen Dave legitimately upset with his ectotwin; not resigned to her infuriatingly enigmatic riddles, not harangued by her unsolicited inscrutable insight, just kind of really fucking pissed. Of course, he’s zeroed in on her love life instead of actually addressing the larger issue, but it’s still a... foreign situation.

Rose, however, seems unfazed. “Can’t a girl jus’ look her best ev’ry once in awhile?”

Alright, that does it. “Lalonde, would you quit the coy shit for once in your immortal life?” You swear, if you have to sit through one more second of this pointless charade you are going to gnaw off your frond and use it to punch yourself unconscious. “You could be at the altar of your human weddings, pledging to spend eternity together in a hive with a lawnring ensconced in a series of wooden spokes painted the most _pristine_ shade of ivory, a hive made for the _explicit purpose_ of rearing two-point-five of whatever hybrid offspring you get your hands on and _by the end of the ceremony_ you’d both be agonizing over whether or not _any_ of it could _possibly_ be construed as a romantic gesture! Was it really an evening imbued with amorous overtures? Are you sure you aren't reading into it? A bit hard to misread the situation when you're both constantly on the cusp of sucking face like two limpets attached by their _disgustingly musculent pods!_ ”

“And how does that make you _feel_ ,” Rose says, waggling her eyebrows to emphasize just how much of a parody of herself she’s being.

Before you can gear up for a radioactive shitfit, Dave reaches up to rub at his eyes under his shades. “Look, Rose, maybe you should just reschedule. You're really not gonna make the best impression when you're more trashed than a fraternity dorm on the morning of April twenty-first.”

“No! It's cool I'm, cool. Really!” She sits up, straightening her posture pole in an attempt to communicate just how cool she is.

In your humble opinion, it doesn't work. “Trust me Lalonde, I can understand why anyone with a functional think pan would ignore whatever spills out of Dave Strider’s squawk blister, but you should probably listen to him this time. Maybe just call it a night, and—”

Of course, it’s at that moment Vriska bursts in.

“Hey there _Lalonde,_ ” she says, chipper in the most acerbic way possible. “Having fun?”

It takes a second to process her appearance, and another one to recognize Kanaya trailing behind. The sudden invasion seems to jar Rose into some semblance of sobriety. Dave, meanwhile, is cradling his face in his hands.

“Kanaya? What are you doing here?”

“I—”

“ _She’s_ been _waiting_ for your dilatory ass to show up!”

“What, that can't be right, it’s only—”

Before Rose can even attempt to puzzle out the human timepiece hanging on the far wall, Dave completes the thought with, “Eight fifty-two.” Still refusing to surface from the sanctuary of his open palms, he adds, “Twenty, if you're going by military.”

This is apparently a realization more devastating than the onset of an apocalypse, judging by Rose’s reaction. She brings a hand to cover her mouth. “It’s been—”

“That’s right, it’s been _one hour_ since fussyfangs was supposed to be picked up for her date, and what do we find here! Negligent Nancy lounging around without a care in the world!”

“Kanaya, I- I’m sorry, I…”

You can pinpoint the exact moment Kanaya goes from ‘upset on her own behalf’ to ‘characteristically concerned about the welfare of others’. It’s in the way she holds herself, tension draining from the stance she takes. “I realized there might have been… extenuating circumstances behind your tardiness. Are you alright?”

“I’m _fine—”_

“ _No, you're not!_ ” Vriska stalks over to where Rose is sitting and slaps her mug onto the floor, shattering it. “I expected better from you,” she seethes, grinding the ceramic shards beneath her heel. “Get your fucking act together. We don’t have _time_ for you to be wasting your energy, muddling your abilities, acting like an incompetent wiggler when we have a _battle_ to prepare for!”

Dave’s tense beside you, closing his humantop and looking ready to jump in, but Vriska’s already storming off— she’s like a hurricane, harbinger of sudden devastation and an even more abrupt departure. A hurricane that’s completely fine wreaking havoc with vituperate abandon on someone who looks like a kicked barkbeast.

“I,” Rose says, “I need to— I have to—”

Whatever she has to do, she runs off in the most severe display of acute distress you've ever seen from her.

An awkward silence settles over those still assembled. In the end, it’s Kanaya who actually breaks it. She doesn’t turn to any of you when she says, “I should go after her.”

“No offense Kanaya, but you're probably the last person she wants to talk to. It’d be like sending an untrained sheepdog after a high-strung lamb.” He wraps the cord of his headphones around his touch stumps, unwinds them, and wraps them again, continuing the absent motion without looking at anyone. “Then again, maybe that’s better than sending the self-righteous douche that called wolf and was vindicated in literally the worst, most uncomfortable way possible. Fuck.”

“I’ll go.”

For a second you think Dave’s going to launch into an explanation about how that's the worst idea to ever be expelled from your load gaper of a mouth, but to your surprise, he nods. “You're probably our best bet here.”

That’s unfortunate.

“Tell her… fuck.” Dave frowns, then mouths something else. Probably another curse. “Don't tell her that. Tell her we’re worried. Unless she’s gonna take it as an attack in some convoluted show of misguided independence. Just...”

“Yeah. I got it.”

You go off to find her

 

* * *

 

It takes you longer than it probably should to narrow down the expanse of the meteor to the few locations she’s likely to actually be, but eventually you make your way to the right place.

Rose is sitting against the alchemiter, staring vacantly into the distance when you find her. She turns away when she sees you.

“Karkat,” she says in a hollow tone you’ve never heard from her. “If you're here to ridicuel me, or pass a mess’ge from Dave, please jus’ do me a favor and… and don’t.” She’s overtaken by a full-body shudder, and you beg every entity in Paradox Space, please, you're in over your horns enough already, don't add a sobbing Lalonde on top of it.

You drop down next to her. “Listen,” you start, letting the word sigh out like an exhale, “Kanaya’s my friend, but you're my friend too. Even when you fuck up.” You let your head fall back against the metal of the alchemiter. “If we held everyone’s fuckups against them, there’d be no one left alive on this rock.”

There’s a small huff that comes from Rose. She’s still turned away from you, but it sounded amused— it’s a small victory, and it’s enough to keep you going.

“Don't get me wrong, I'm still pretty pissed on Kanaya’s behalf, but…” here goes. Time to make the trek from Personally Involved to Purposefully Involved. “This isn't like you, Rose. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re actually pretty fucking worried. All of us are. Even if we kind of suck nook at showing it. I know I'm probably not your first choice, but… I'm here to listen to whatever you want to say.”

At first you think she’s going to tell you to go fuck yourself and dive into the nearest supernova, but she doesn't. Maybe it’s the soporific, but after a long moment, she drops her head onto your shoulder. “In retrospleh— _retrospect_ , it was a childish attempt to imitima— _shit._ ” With a groan, she bangs her head against the metal hard enough for the ensuing impact to reverberate against your back. “To _copy_ my mother. It made me feel… close to her.”

You didn't think you'd ever see ‘Rose Lalonde’ and ‘emotional vulnerability’ in the same orbit, but there’s something… maybe not fragile, but a bit brittle in the way she curls into herself. “It was foolish. I can see that now.” She pinches the divot of her cartilaginous nub, letting out a hiss of frustration. “This would be so much easier if I wasn't fucking hammered.”

“Hold on a sec,” you say, standing up to access the alchemiter. You search through the previously entered captchas for that sec, then zap a pillow into existence. You toss it at her.

“Don’t break your fragile calcium-based skull against heavy machinery." You swear, humans have the least amount of self-preservation you've ever seen in a species. “That’s a battle you're not going to win, and I don’t want to find out how long it takes for you to revive from blunt force trauma.”

While she’s staring in bewilderment at her new cushion, you flop back down beside her. “You don't have to be perfect, you know.” You stare at the ceiling. “I get that being the omniscient guiding beacon of our pathetic existence is your whole _thing_ , but you’re allowed to fuck up, and you're allowed to be fucked up. The game did a number on all of us.” That’s putting it mildly. “We weren’t mad because you were being ‘foolish.’ We were worried because you weren’t acting like you, and it all just seemed…” Well. There was a lot you could say about that, but there’s nothing that really fits. “Fuck. Vaguely self-destructive? Erratic? I don’t know. It was just fucking weird to watch from the outside, okay?”

Rose closes her eyes, then laughs. It isn’t her usual drunken giggling, so much as it’s a burst of raw _something_ edged with the slightest bit of hysteria. “I'm afraid I cannot explain myself, sir. Because I am not myself, you see.”

“What the shit are you talking about?”

“Earth literature.” Rose crushes her face into the pillow, and after a long moment, she resurfaces with a carefully schooled expression, still staring down at it. “It’s hard, Karkat. It’s hard having nothing to cling to because it’s all gone, and I wanted something familiar. That’s it. I know I made everyone worry, and that the drinking was unhealthy, and maybe in an hour I’ll be able to write a dissertation outlining exactly when and where I went wrong, but right now the only explanation I have to offer you is that I’m tired. I’m tired, and I want my mom back. I miss her.”

The thing about infinite possibilities is that you could say any number of things, and most of them might even be the right thing, but you have no way of knowing until long after everything’s been said. Eventually, you settle on, “I’m sorry.”

“I’d say it’s not your fault, but I can feel Dave’s disgust at the cliché from the other side of the meteor."

It’s such a Rose thing to say, just pretentious enough to reassure you that everything’s going to be alright after all.

You sit in silence for a while, letting her decompress, but there’s only so long you can ignore the trunkbeast in the room.

“So, Kanaya.”

Rose groans and pushes her face back into the pillow. “Unn wuh nuh tah abuh thuh,” she says, which you think translates to, “can we not talk about this.” Too bad you’re an expert at charging headfirst into uncomfortable topics while humans attempt furniture consumption to escape their shame.

“You can’t avoid Kanaya after this.” She’s survived worse, but she shouldn’t have to.

There’s another muffled groan, but Rose lifts her head from the pillow. “I can't believe I let her see me like that. She’s going to realize that getting involved with me is an imbroglio best avoided. She probably won’t even _want_ to see me.”

“Trust me, it’d take a lot more than that to shake her interest.” She’s fucking smitten, and normally you'd have enough tact to avoid saying just that, but you’ve been holding it in! For so long! “It’s agonizing, watching the two of you dance around each other like a couple of floundering spleenfowl performing the universe’s most mortifying mating ritual. Who are you even trying to fool? Put us out of our misery, Rose. We’re begging you. The agonizing discomfort of being an accidental voyeur to any ensuing sloppy interspecies makeouts? That’s _nothing_ compared to the visceral, never-ending pain of second-hand embarrassment we’re subjected to while waiting for that inevitable occurrence!”

“You and Dave are just as bad. There’s not a single person who hasn't noticed there’s something between you two,” she fires back. Now that was un-fucking-called for, but at least she’s stopped pretending that the thing with Kanaya isn’t a thing when _everyone can tell it’s a thing_ , even if she’s using your relationship with Dave to deflect. So you do the one thing you know she won't expect.

You tell the truth.

“I know.”

Under different circumstances, you'd be reveling in the fact you managed to shock Rose fucking Lalonde. She looks comically flabbergasted, maybe a bit scandalized, all mixed neatly in an expression of utter bafflement. “You _know?_ ”

“Of course I know! I'd have to be an obtuse pupating dunderfuck not to see how I— how _he—_ ” wait fuck no, this isn't a conversation you're going to have with the wrong ectotwin. “We're not talking about this. We’re talking about how you're going to clean yourself up, explain yourself to Kanaya, and reschedule your date.”

“But what if…”

“But what if you ignore her for the better part of an earth “month” to give her some space? What if she takes it as a sign that you’re the one that wants distance? What if this disaster of miscommunication and misread intentions on a heaping pile of misunderstood boundaries, fueled by otherwise healthy impulses to respect one another, could be easily circumvented through basic communication? Gee, it’s not like that’s a thing that’s already happened on this shithole oubliette of a communal space.” One day, one _glorious_ day, you won’t be in charge of recycling advice that’s already been shoved down your windhole. “Am I going to have to recite word-for-fucking-word what you said to me when I was being an immature wiggler?”

“No, no. You're right. I’m being ridiculous. Thank you for talking sense into me.” Rose looks thoughtful for a moment, then gives you a strange look, glancing between you and the pillow.

“What now?”

“Karkat… just so that we’re both clear on the matter, this wasn’t a pale solicitation, yes? Just emotional transparency between two friends.”

How are you alive. How the fuck are you even alive when _every_ conversation with _any_ human leaves you with the impulse to launch yourself into the vacuum of space, letting your body drift to the Furthest Ring and into the gaping maw of whatever eldritch abomination finds you first. “Like this was even _remotely_ intimate enough to register as any shade of pale! I’m just trying to make sure you're not about to crawl into some isolated corner of the meteor and rot away until one of us stumbles upon your decomposing body, which would be all the more traumatic considering your _inability to die._ Besides, I've already got my prongs full with—” Fuck!

Rose gives you an amused look. “With?”

“With none of your business. If you valued a single millisecond in any point of our conversation, ignore that and don't you dare pull any of that psychobabble bullshit.”

She smiles.

“Shut up.”

“I didn't say anything.”

 

* * *

 

CURRENT carcinoGeneticist [CCG] RIGHT NOW opened memo on board FRUITY RUMPUS ASSHOLE FACTORY. 

CCG: IT HAS COME TO MY ATTENTION THAT APPARENTLY WE NEED TO SET GROUND RULES FOR BASIC FUCKING DECENCY.  
CCG: WHICH HONESTLY BAFFLES ME BECAUSE UNTIL TODAY, EVERYONE ON THIS METEOR MANAGED TO CONDUCT THEMSELVES WITH THE BARE MINIMUM OF SOCIAL DECORUM.  
CCG: FOR A GENEROUS DEFINITION OF ‘DECORUM,’ THAT IS.  
CCG: BUT THAT DEFINITION USED TO BE GOOD ENOUGH.  
CCG: I GUESS THERE’S A TIME LIMIT ON NOT ACTING LIKE TRUCULENT PUSTULES ON THE UNFORTUNATE FACE OF SENTIENCE, AND THAT TIME LIMIT HAPPENS TO BE ALMOST NINE PERIGEES ON THE DOT!  
CCG: THAT’S A PERIOD OF TIME LONG ENOUGH TO WARRANT AT LEAST ONE MURDER.  
CCG: SO GOLD FUCKING STAR ON AVOIDING THAT, BUT HERE’S AN IMMEDIATE RESCINDMENT BECAUSE WAY TO BREAK FUCKING PRECEDENT WITH THE RECENT COMMUNAL SHITFEST!  
CCG: RULE NUMBER ONE: DON’T BARGE INTO A ROOM AND FLING SHIT AROUND WITH LESS RESTRAINT THAN A FECULENT APE TAKING A BATH IN ITS OWN POOP.  
CCG: MAYBE CONSIDER A MORE *DELICATE APPROACH* YEAH?  
CCG: JUST PUTTING IT OUT THERE!

PAST arachnidsGrip [PAG] 1:27 HOURS AGO responded to the memo.

PAG: Just try and fucking stop me!  
PAG: It’s not my fault none of you losers are a8out to address the issue!  
PAG: So soooooooorry I got sick of w8ing for anyone to 8e the least 8it useful!  
PAG: Once again, it’s up to me to make sure anything gets done on this rock.  
CCG: JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVE A LEGITIMATE CONCERN DOESN’T MEAN YOU GET TO BARGE INTO THE SITUATION LIKE A SPRINGLOADED ROCKET SHAPED LIKE AN EXTENDED MIDDLE FINGER.  
CCG: GUESS WHAT’S NOT AN ENDEARING CHARACTER TRAIT!  
CCG: FORCING YOUR POINT FAR ENOUGH DOWN EVERYONE’S PROTEIN CHUTE THAT WE COLLECTIVELY VOMIT A SYNCHRONIZED BALLET OF REFLEXIVE DISGUST.  
CCG: THE AUDIENCE GOES WILD WITH DISMAY, AND PROMPTLY JOINS THE BILIOUS SPEWAGE.

PAST gallowsCalibrator [PCG] 1:21 HOURS AGO responded to the memo.

PGC: VR1SK4, 1F YOUR3 GO1NG TO DO SOM3TH1NG DR4ST1C M4YB3 YOU SHOULD T4LK TO M3 F1RST?  
CCG: LISTEN TO YOUR MOIRAIL, SHE’S CLEARLY THE ONLY ONE WITH COMMON SENSE IN YOUR RELATIONSHIP.  
CCG: AND I SAY THIS DESPITE BEING INTIMATELY FAMILIAR WITH HER LUDICROUS COURTBLOCK SHENANIGANS!  
CCG: I’VE HAD TO HEAR ABOUT THE GRUESOME DEMISE OF SO MANY SCALEMATES, REPEATED AD NAUSEUM.  
CCG: I KNOW EVERY EXCRUCIATING DETAIL ABOUT ALL THE SCANDALS IN TREEHIVE MURDERTOWN.  
CCG: COMMANDER FRUITYBUTT SNEEZED ON HIS TYRANNY’S GAVEL!  
CCG: HIS REPARATIONS TO SOCIETY MUST BE PAID IN BLOOD.  
CCG: THE WIGGLERS GAZE UPON HIS CORPSE AS IT SWINGS IN THE WIND, SKIMMING THE DARKENED CANOPY.  
CCG: THEIR LESSON FOR TODAY: FUCKED UP MORAL BOUNDARIES.  
CCG: NOW GET OUT OF HERE, NOBODY WANTS FRONT ROW SEATS TO THE PYROPE-SERKET PILE SHOW.

CCG banned PAG from responding to the memo.  
CCG banned PGC from responding to the memo. 

CCG: FUCK, WHERE WAS I GOING WITH THIS.

CURRENT turntechGodhead [CTG] RIGHT NOW responded to the memo.

CTG: so was there another rule  
CTG: or are we just making shit up as we go along like were writing the worlds trashiest penny dreadful  
CTG: who needs buckets when a garbage can is right fucking there  
CTG: outlines are for losers  
CTG: anarchy reigns and the king demands anatomically incorrect fanservice  
CTG: next royal proclamation aka rule number two  
CTG: no running in the halls  
CCG: FUCK OFF DAVE, I’M TRYING TO MAKE A POINT HERE.  
CCG: WHY IS IT WHENEVER I MAKE ANY ATTEMPT TO ORGANIZE A MEANINGFUL FORUM FOR DISCUSSION, IT GETS DERAILED INTO A FLAMING WRECKAGE OF SOCIAL INCOMPETENCE.  
CTG: not my fault youre constantly setting yourself up for this shit  
CCG: WHAT, ARE YOU SAYING I’M RESPONSIBLE FOR EVERYONE’S COLLECTIVE INABILITY TO FOLLOW SIMPLE FUCKING DIRECTIONS?  
CTG: im just saying youre making it hard

CURRENT tentacleTherapist [CTT] RIGHT NOW responded to the memo.

CTT: Phrasing, Dave.

CCG banned CTT from responding to the memo.

CTG: good call there  
CTG: so lets just ignore that  
CTG: accidental and human specific innuendo nobody needs to know or understand  
CTG: innuendo more like innuendont  
CTG: fuck

CTG banned himself from replying to the memo.

CCG: *THE POINT IS*  
CCG: IF WE’RE GOING TO BE ON THIS ROCK FOR ANOTHER SWEEP OR SO, IT MIGHT BE A GREAT FUCKING IDEA NOT TO THRASH THE BEE’S NEST OF INTERPERSONAL CONFLICT WITH THE PHYSICAL MANIFESTATIONS OF YOUR OVERINFLATED EGO.  
CCG: THE LAST THING WE NEED IS SOMEONE STEWING CONTENTION LIKE A BELLIGERENT MEGALOMANIAC OBSESSED WITH INSTIGATING DRAMA.

CURRENT arachnidsGrip [CAG] RIGHT NOW responded to the memo.

CAG: Say what you want, the pro8lem got dealt with.  
CAG: Sometimes you need to cre8 conflict to solve it! ::::)  
CCG: WOW, I’VE NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT IT LIKE THAT!  
CCG: BECAUSE I HAVE MORE SOCIAL APTITUDE THAN A RANCID HOOFBEAST CARCASS ROTTING UNDER THE ALTERNIAN SUN.  
CAG: Fine! Don't take it from me! 8ut I wonder, what might our mutual friends have to say on the su8ject?

FUTURE tentacleTherapist [FTT] 3:42 HOURS FROM NOW responded to the memo.

FTT: I have some reservations about Vriska’s methods, which I will enumerate in full at a later time.  
FTT: However, I will say that the air has been cleared and the date has been rescheduled.

FUTURE grimAuxilliatrix [FGA] 3:42 HOURS FROM NOW responded to the memo.

FGA: So It Was A Date  
FTT: Fuck.

FTT banned herself from responding to the memo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The book Rose was paraphrasing is Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.  
> \- Air
> 
> [5/7/16, 6:47:35 PM] Air: Fruity Rumpus Asshole Factory 12 aka the Doc where we just say screw it and let the flood of gay loose on an unsuspecting world  
> [5/7/16, 6:47:51 PM] Air: fuck forty days and forty nights noah’s gonna have his hands full with this  
> [5/7/16, 6:48:17 PM] Stella: 50 thousand words and it's finally time  
> [5/7/16, 6:48:40 PM] Air: tread all you want buddy but gayness ain’t viscous enough to support your weight  
> [5/7/16, 6:48:50 PM] Air: w’re all sinking to the bottom of this big gay ocean  
> [5/7/16, 6:49:06 PM] Stella: My home  
> [5/7/16, 6:49:16 PM] Air: same


	13. A precipice of sorts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which No One Receives A Storm Warning Until The Onset of The Downpour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jesus christ  
> -stella
> 
> I agree with the above sentiment. This chapter kicked our asses. But anyway we've both graduated, so that's cool.  
> Anyway, please be careful while reading, as this chapter deals with a lot of internalised toxicity.  
> \- Air

Terezi Pyrope is a troll with many irons in the fire. Or, more accurately, one irritating alloy of flesh-blistering arrogance that’s been left to smolder in a blazing inferno of egoism. She’s either in cahoots with spidertroll, or puzzling out plans with spidertroll, or exploring dream bubbles with spidertroll, or buried in piles with spidertroll, et-fucking-cetera. But occasionally, when she has free time that _isn't_ monopolized by spidertroll, she actually… has a life outside spidertroll’s tedious machinations! Which is a fucking relief, because Vriska’s insufferable enough without someone to validate any incidental accomplishment she stumbles ass-backwards into. There’s only so long anyone can handle the scourge sisters in action, and your tolerance is _particularly_ low. You’re talking limbo bar set in the lower mesosphere of a planet. You're talking Vast Glub at twelve octaves below its already fatal range. You're talking Eridan’s standards.

The thing is, there are many, _many_ other individuals for Terezi to slobber over when she’s not occupied with Vriska, what with dead friends and doomed-selves popping up like the landscape that sprouts beneath your feet every time you hit a dream bubble; the stars have to align _just right_ for some quality and uninterrupted hangouts. And that’s why you’re not going to waste a single second of this precious paltime on _another_ screening of Good Luck Chuck, _Dave._

Even after the staggering revelation that _he doesn't even like the movie_ , he’s stubbornly insistent on watching it _all the time_ , queuing it at _every opportunity,_  and you've been lenient. You've been indulgent. You've allowed him to subject you to human Dane Cook’s odious visage, and worse, his fictitious, _gratuitous_ sexual exploits, but this is where you draw the line. You are _not_ going to let Dave ruin the night with his atrocious sensibilities. You are going to have an enjoyable cinematic experience with two of your dear friends _even if_ you have to _physically restrain_ the very paragon of abhorrent taste, which you are currently in the process of doing while Terezi cheers you on. Or maybe she’s cheering him on. Honestly, she’s probably just invested in the potential for bloodshed.

It’s rough, balancing on top of Dave while maintaining your verbal treatise on exactly why _nobody’s_ watching Good Luck Chuck tonight, but someone has to do it. That someone is you. You're doing the meteor a great service. It’s too bad only Terezi’s here to appreciate your hard work; you've assured her that your ‘ R1D1CULOUS W1GGL3R TH34TR1CS’ are entirely necessary, but she’ll never understand exactly what she’s being spared from unless she watches the movie. Which isn't happening, because you have full fucking control of the situation. Or at least, you do right up until you're quite literally blindsided by a mass of _something_ , and fuck! That’s enough to knock you off your precarious perch and onto the floor, grappling with whatever unfathomable substance has you caught in its death grip before you realize, wait, hold on, you can see light filtering through it. Also, it’s fabric. It’s fabric, no one’s trying to kill you, and it’s actually pretty fucking soft.

As soon as you stop thrashing like a frantic barkbeast hopped up on high fructose grubsauce before its inevitable demise, it’s easy enough to make your way out the labyrinth of cloth. Of course, the first thing you see as after your escape is eight thousand watts of blindingly smug complacency emanating from Rose’s self-satisfied face.

“What,” you start, imbuing your words with as much righteous disbelief as you can muster, “the _fuck_ was that for?”

“After much deliberation, I decided that I would rather bypass any fumbling attempt to maintain the pretence of propriety; the courtesy tango is simply exhausting to endure, which is an opinion formed through my own extensive experience with it. So, instead of forcing you to recognize your succor through verbal coercion, I’ll be forcing you to recognize it with a physical representation of my gratitude.”

You don't know why you always get flack for being the epitome of long-winded jackassery when all light players apparently love the sound of their own voice. Why take two seconds to explain what you can expand into several days of unnecessary exposition! You desperately pray for her to get to the point within the hour, and one of her abominable gods must be looking out for you because she actually does. “In summary,” she says, “thank you for your help; now take the damn cape.”

Looking at the bunched-up material in your prongs you realize that it is, in fact, a cape. A grey cape with a hood like Dave’s. Between Kanaya and Rose, you’ll never have to alchemize your own clothes ever again.

“And you felt the need to suffocate me with it, why?” You don't get an answer, which fucking figures. Fine. Whatever. Unlike some people, you're not some primitive monkey incapable of common fucking courtesy, so you make sure to say, “Thanks. You're welcome? That entire tirade was some top-notch incomprehensible rambling, so I’ll let you take your pick.”

As great as the cape feels in your prongs, it feels even better around your shoulders. You flip it out behind you, letting it flutter despite the absence of any natural breeze.

Okay. That’s really cool.

“Nice. Now that you’ve got a cape of your own, you can stop stealing mine.” Dave, still lying face-down on the couch, waves a halfhearted thumbs-up.

Yeah, right. “Scratch that last thought straight into oblivion, it’s a solid ‘thanks, Rose!’ Having two capes is great, I can feel my quality of life improving with every passing second.”

“You have _one_ cape, you _steal_ mine. Like a reverse Batman. Not the thief Gotham needs, deserves, or wants, but the one we’re saddled with." He finally turns over, letting his inane chatter flow unimpeded by the squawk-suppressing cushions. “I guess that’s a weird amalgam of Batman and Catwoman though. Or maybe just Catwoman? _Inverse_ Batman?”

Now that sounds like a load of decontextualized blithering you're going to ignore, because what else escapes Dave’s unintelligible chute. “Jokes on you, Dave. I’ve shed blood on it, claiming it as my property. It belongs to me by law. The covenant is sealed.”

That gets Terezi’s attention. She drapes herself forward over the back of the couch, resting her chin on her prongs. “And what law is that?”

“Meteor Law, as established in Vantas v. Strider thirty seconds ago.”

“I saw no official trial, Karkat.” An obvious statement, but whatever, you’ve learned to accept her esoteric sense of humor. And here comes her customary sharp grin, full of mischief and guile and, of course, teeth, as she continues, “But with Her Honorable Tyranny here to preside, we could _easily_ —”

“Guess what we’re not doing! Indulging in anything remotely related to the fictitious playing of imaginary roles. I see you with that gavel, Lalonde; don’t you fucking dare.”

Rose raises her arms in facetious submission, recaptchaloguing the offending apparatus as Terezi blows a prolonged raspberry at your general direction. She makes sure to get you in the splash zone. Thanks, Terezi. With the dwindling backdrop of that charming linguolabial trill, Rose claps her now-empty prongs together. “In any case, whatever you two decide with regards to the particulars of your equitable distribution, the grey cape belongs to Karkat.”

“Y’know,” Dave says, “putting away the gavel means you’re supposed to drop the court bullshit. Take off the powdered wig, Judge Judy, alimony ain’t the issue here.”

“Then I assume your matrimonious union continues to be a happy one. Do let me know how wedded bliss treats you.”

If you were capable of giving the smallest, most miniscule shit about the implications of being human-married, you’re sure Rose’s ribbing would have a more pronounced effect, but guess what! Human rituals are nonsensical exercises in ludicrous absurdity, which means you have absolutely no significant response to any reference of the aforementioned asinine antics. You remain firmly unribbed. Completely unjaped. No persiflage is getting under your skin, and that is a true statement of objective fact.

At the very least you’re handling it much better than Dave, who promptly throws a pillow and misses her entirely. “Go make out with your girlfriend or something.”

“Perhaps I will,” is Rose’s retort as she lifts her chin, looking down at her uncoordinated ectotwin. Who bares their throat to look superior? Humans are fucking weird.

Also, sloppy interspecies makeouts weren’t an image you wanted anywhere near the vicinity of your think pan, and Dave seems to share that sentiment. “Wow, that’s definitely something I want to hear get said by my sister. TMI, Rose.”

“Are you implying you don’t want to live through the trope-ridden sitcom cliché of your sibling oversharing her love life? And you were so invested in— what was it? Kanaya and I ‘pledging to spend eternity together while ensconcing ourselves with a white-picket fence’?”

“Uh, no, that was Karkat, I’m absolutely five-hundred percent _thrilled_ to be kept out of the sordid details of your vampire fantasies. As hard as it’s gotta be for you, keep it straight, Rose. Do you really think I’d even know the definition of ‘ensconced’? He’s the diction guy. The James Joyce to my Douglas Adams.”

“Oh, please. He deserves better than that.”

Now there’s something you can (maybe?) get pissed about. “Were you insulting me with your regurgitated earth humour again?”

“Yes,” Rose says before he can respond.

Dave wheezes in protest as you sit on him again.

“So, Rose! How did your date go?” You ask. “Tell me every excruciating detail! In the interest of cultural exchange, I’d _love_ to know _exactly_ how your human sensibilities regarding “vampires” played into your seduction process.”

Terezi lets out an explosive sigh, sliding forward until she’s very nearly folded over the back of the couch. “Whatever you’re doing, it sure is effective. It gets so much harder to smell her whenever you’re in the room! She lights up and suddenly she’s a cloud of flavorless, watery space with only a hint of lime. It makes getting around a pain in the butt! I must insist on some sort of recompense, Lalonde.”

“Oh? And that would be?”

“Well,” Terezi drawls, “rainbow drinker skin _smells_ incredible, like a snowcone at the height of second summer, but Kanaya never lets me get close enough for a single lick. She is simply too quick for the likes of us average trolls, both in wit and speed! So tell me: what does rainbow drinker skin taste like?”

You can always rely on Terezi to jump on board with whatever amps up the collective discomfort from ‘vaguely existent’ to ‘physically tangible’. A faint ‘aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa’ resounds from below, and you absently wave a prong at its origin until you manage to swat his mouth shut.

“It’s quite early in the relationship, and there are some things I’d like to keep private. I’d appreciate it if you left antagonizing my brother to the expert.” Her tone is flippant, but Rose isn’t as enigmatic as she’d like to think; acting blasé does nothing to hide the soft expression on that face, Lalonde.

There’s no point in pretending this line of conversation isn’t specifically designed to spite Dave, but you _are_ actually kind of curious about some general aspects, since this _is_ a matter concerning two of your close friends. Not that you’d be rude enough to publicly ask if they’ve decided to go for the flushed quadrant. It makes the most sense, but also humans overcomplicate everything they do in a gratuitous display of superfluous impracticality; it’s basically their defining characteristic. Even after hours upon hours of extensive study on the remnants of romantic media left by mankind, you’re utterly baffled how _anyone_ can survive feeling so much, all at once, all the time. You don’t understand how anyone can navigate that unstructured mess of emotion. They certainly wouldn’t survive on Alternia. It doesn’t make sense. It can’t make sense.

“To answer your question in the most benign way possible,” Rose continues, because that’s right, she’s still talking. Or now, she takes a second to glance away with an involuntary grin faint enough to rival the fucking sun, that is, not faint at all, wow, way to be super fucking obvious. “The date went… well. However, I’m sure Kanaya would prefer to have this conversation with you. What is a date without the opportunity to disclose the riveting details to your closest friends, after all?”

Fair enough.

“I'm sure you'll hear from her soon enough.” As increasingly common as unrestrained, genuine displays of emotion are from the residential humans, you still feel like you’re catching a clandestine sight, intruding on a moment of privacy. Even when that not-so-rare affectionate smile is directed at you, specifically. It’s not long before it takes a sly edge, because if there’s one thing Rose loves more than sucker-punching everybody with a sudden bout of sincerity, it’s being a little shit. “Now, I believe that I have some— what is the phrase? Irons in the—”

“No,” you say, pointing emphatically. “No.”

Terezi’s grinning. You point to her as well. “No.”

After just enough time for you to relax, for you to think, hey! Maybe someone on this oubliette of a rock might entertain the concept of accommodating your need to live with minimal reference to a certain intolerable bilge-spewing egomaniac— because that quota's been filled for the day— Rose gives you the biggest shit-eating grin possible and says, “Fire,” right before zapping out on the transportalizer. A pillow sails over exactly where she was standing before she fucked off into the abyss, thrown by you, because if there’s one thing you’re an expert on, it’s dramatic demonstrations of impotent rage. It lands next to Dave’s.

“You do realize neither of us are getting those pillows, right. I mean, I’m still trapped like Prometheus, punished for trying to bestow trollkind with the glorious gift of Good Luck Chuck, and TZ here’s the guest of honor.”

“It’s true! Don’t be an immature wiggler. The sooner you pick up after yourself like a responsible citizen, the sooner we can get on with movie night.”

“But we haven't decided what to watch!”

“It was decided the second you mentioned the law, Karkat. Besides, I'm the guest of honor! Of _course_ I get to choose what we watch.”

“Oh no.” You can see exactly where this is going, because Terezi is nothing if not predictable when it comes to her interests. Freeing Dave from his prison, you trudge over to retrieve the pillows, if only to have something to scream in. “Not your fucking courtblock dramas.”

“Yes, my fucking courtblock dramas! I can't let your gross misrepresentation of justice go unchallenged!”

“Alright, I'm game.” Dave takes full advantage of his newfound freedom to sit up properly, sliding over to one side of the couch, which is great, because now you actually have somewhere to sit other than his awkward bony frame. “I gotta say though, no one else can see what's going on if you’re slobbering over the screen.”

“This particular drama just so happens to be an old favorite of mine, so I’ve more or less memorized everything. But, as it has been repeatedly established, I’m the guest of honor here. Deal with the slobber.”

After two minutes, Dave stops the video. “This ain't a drama,” he says, “it’s a goddamn massacre. I mean... holy _fuck_.”

“You should see the ones where they put highbloods on trial. That’s when the crowd goes wild!”

You don’t even have to see his face to know what kind of expression hides behind his shades— he practically radiates a muted distress. “Please tell me this is a dramatized pile of crap played up for laughs. Shit’s gotta be like, the Alternian equivalent of SNL.”

“I picked the most accurate one there is, Dave! What’s the point of showing you Alternian law if it’s just some distilled analogue to whatever Earth reference you're making?”

“So what, this is how everything is handled? You try ‘em, you fry ‘em? Or, in this case, string them up like some morbid fucking deli display.” He gestures emphatically at the screen, which seems kind of pointless, considering his audience. “There isn’t even a defense attorney! They just read out the allegations and, whoops, that’s it, defendant’s ready to hang! What’s the point of even holding a trial?”

Terezi shakes her head. “Everyone brought to court has extensive evidence implicating them in whatever crime they’ve been accused of, it would be pointless to bring in any sort of defense. But, as small as it is, there’s a sniff of hope for anyone dragged before His Honorable Tyranny. Some offenses don’t even get that.” Terezi doesn’t look at you, but Dave does.

You nod, because it's not like it's new information for anyone in the room. “I wouldn't get a trial. I'd just be culled on the spot.”

That’s apparently the wrong thing to say. “How do you miss Alternia?” The agitation in Dave’s voice is uncomfortably palpable, and it’s putting you on edge. It feels like an accusation.

“What are you talking about,” you say, more challenge than question.

“Did it just never occur to you that maybe it was kind of a shitty place to live? Fuck, you..." With a helpless sort of gesture, it almost looks like he's ready to take you by the shoulders and start shaking relentlessly. "You could've been killed.”

And yeah, maybe you've been extracting the slightest enjoyment from knowing that you won’t risk certain death with a papercut, or, fuck, any display of emotion whatsoever, but the reputation of Alternia is at stake and you won’t have it slandered by some asshole who thinks he knows better. “Oh, and Earth was a paradise!”

“It _wasn't_ ,” and wait, hold on, apparently you’ve been getting keyed up for the wrong fight. “Things kinda sucked there. Just in different ways, you know? But I’m starting to think it’s kind of the same way, with less state-sanctioned murder.” Dave ducks his head. “It’s all forcing people to be what they're not, and punishing them when they can't. Second verse, same as the first.”

“Alternia’s _nothing_ like Earth.” How could anyone with a functional think pan even _imply_ a comparison could conceivably be made. “Alternia’s awesome! Was awesome. It was the most badass planet of the entire galaxy! _Multiple_ galaxies! Come on Terezi, back me up.”

“I’m with Dave on this.”

What the fuck.

“What the fuck?” You ask, because it’s worth saying out loud.

Terezi lets out a sigh, one that grates against the tense silence. “Listen, Karkat. It’s impossible for you to grasp the full implications of what the retcon changed.” You’re so fucking ready to ask why no one on this meteor is capable of linear conversational progression, but she holds up a prong before you can interrupt. “Shut that squawk blister, I’ve got the floor! John didn’t just charge in like a frantic trunkbeast to knock Vriska out; there were much more subtle calculations at play, changes made through our own session. Before that, even.”

“What, are you saying you got Egbert to prance around your morbid murdertime puppet show?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying!”

Wait, seriously?

There’s not a hint of derision on Terezi’s face, no characteristic tell indicating any kind of farce. “My future self obviously ordered John to mess with my scalemates for a reason. Fucking with John is hilarious—”

“Agreed,” Dave says, and they take a second out of this moment of condensing gravitas for a solemn fistbump.

“—but that isn’t why I sent him on what he assumed to be a feral honkbird hunt! Looking back, it just… makes sense! I needed something to challenge my approach to justice, otherwise I would’ve— I would’ve _killed_ —”

She takes a second to collect herself, a second you and Dave spend tactfully looking literally anywhere else.

“Even after I was manipulated _the exact same way_ before, I was going to repeat the same mistake. My guess is that my doomed self came to the same conclusion. We just had to come to it sooner, and the scalemates— they were the catalyst. But it’s not like there was no foundation for this! I’ve been thinking about it for a while. There’s a lot to think about.” Terezi makes a face. “I know you don't buy into ancestral legacies—”

“Because they're a load of aristocratic superstition invented by highbloods so they can feel even more smug and self-satisfied than they already do!”

“ _Alright_ grumpynubs, now shut up and listen. Adults used to live on homeworld.”

“No,” you say. “No,” you keep saying, because that’s the only word in your suddenly monosyllabic vocabulary. “No way.” And you’ve doubled it! Good job. You’re the most linguistically gifted orator on the meteor.

“Yes way!” Terezi insists. “Whether or not Mindfang is actually Vriska’s ancestor, there’s proof that she existed. And she had a lot to say!”

“Oh, in that case she’s definitely Vriska’s ancestor.” Too bad spidertroll herself isn’t here to bear witness to that sick burn.

“The point is, it’s not like people didn't realize how unfair the caste system was! Senseless brutality isn’t _that_ fun.” And isn’t that ironic.

“You roleplayed senseless brutality! For sweeps!”

“Which means I know better than anyone when it’s best to cut your losses,” Terezi snaps. “It stops being fun as soon as you stop! The momentum is gone! It’s dead. So you swing it back around and redirect the wasted energy on something new: stopping it for everyone else! And that’s what the ancestors tried to do.” She looks in your general direction, her sightless eyes boring into the couch arm. “Why do you think adults weren't allowed on homeworld?”

“Adults are immediately conscripted by Her Imperial Condescension for planetary conquest because she needs utilize all available labor, which is why this entire system’s been in place since her ascension to the throne.” Basic fucking knowledge, Pyrope, everyone who’s been schoolfed knows this shit. “Plus, it keeps wigglers safer. We had a hard enough time surviving the mutual bloodbath facing against similarly inept and freshly-hatched grubs. Adding adults to the mix would decrease the population to nil.”

“Because wiggler safety has always been Her Imperial Condescension’s top priority,” Terezi scoffs. “Adults aren't allowed on homeworld because some of them realized how fucked up it was. Having an imperial army is a convenient way of keeping everyone busy, and getting all the weak links with softest shells killed. A bleeding pump biscuit means you’re more likely to throw yourself in the line of fire when there’s someone to protect, it doesn’t give you the chance to mobilize like-minded trolls.”

“That’s some straight up Metropolis shit right there. Bring on the robot seductress and biblical symbolism.”

“Fuck off, Dave.” You don’t look away from Terezi. “Sure, fine, let’s say that’s why adults aren’t allowed on-planet. If that’s the case, then how come no one’s ever heard of it outside the unquestionably unbiased accounts of these mysterious ‘ancestors’? If they fought so hard, they sure didn’t leave anything to show for it.”

Terezi doesn’t look fazed. “Just because you didn't know about it doesn't mean it didn't happen.”

“Yeah, that’s what I figured.” It comes out of bared teeth and a barely restrained snarl. You know you’re on the precipice of some sort of contretempic meltdown; at this point it’s not a matter of if, but when.

“Dude, chill. TZ doesn’t deserve the kind of crap you’re pulling out of your asshole right now,” Dave says.

“What _I’m_ —” Wow! Way to have the self-awareness of a flea-ridden, slobber-dripping braybeast. “ _You’re_ the one who started this ridiculous coordinated attack on the reputation of _my planet!_ ”

“I didn’t realize being personally invested in the fact that _your planet_ was primed and fucking ready to kill you would get your goat this bad.”

“I dealt with it!”

“Well, fine,” he says, the acerbic bite of those words implying that it’s anything but. “What about trolls who weren’t too jazzed about skewering themselves on the nearest pike and mailing the mess directly to her impetuous condensation? Like fuck, what about that one movie, Wherein Shit Goes Down and Trolls Shoot Themselves into Space—”

“That’s not even remotely close to the title of any movie we’ve seen!”

“—Isn't that basically what would've happened to your half-dead bro? He’s a psiionic, right? Wouldn't he have to spend the rest of his life as a battery under Alternian management?”

“He’s not a troll without options.” It comes out sharp and wrong, the inflection, the intent, and for that one second you’re able to pull yourself back the slightest bit. “He’s good at coding. The best. There would’ve been _plenty_ of jobs for him, and if you ever see Sollux again don't you fucking dare tell him I said any of that.” It’s hard to be sure you’re looking him in the eye with those fucking shades in the way, but you do the best you can. “If we’re worth keeping alive, we won’t get culled. That’s just how it works, okay?”

“So, what, if anyone on your team didn’t pull their weight in the Medium you’d just leave them to die?”

“Of course not! We barely had a handful of unrepentant dunderfucks to begin with; what kind of leader screws himself over in a fit of senseless self-sabotage?”

“Then apparently,” he says, low and patronizing and dripping with deliquescing disdain, “you have more sense than your fish fascist. Some leader she turned out to be.”

“Get some fucking perspective! The empress didn’t have to organize eleven assholes barely out of pupation, she had almost _an entire galaxy_ under her command! She can’t hold everyone’s wriggling appendage and guide each individual to the bare minimum of competency! There are going to be some unavoidable losses if you’re preoccupied with _planetary conquest!_ ”

“What makes them unavoidable? How hard is it to _not_ kill someone for tripping over romance foursquare? For sneezing weird? For _being alive?_ ”

“That’s how things were on Alternia! If you would just—”

“Alternia’s gone, so who cares! You don’t have to defend—”

“ _You don't get to choose how I feel about my home!_ ”

You don't realize you've grabbed Dave by his shirt until he’s gripping your arm. He’s not even trying to make you let go; it's almost like he’s holding it in place, and there’s a long moment where neither of you move.

“I'm sorry,” he says. Your hand drops. It doesn't fall far.

“I’m… fuck,” he says, finally pulling back. “I’m sorry. I’ll go.” He turns. “Sorry.”

Then he flashsteps onto the transportalizer, gone before you can react. Not that you’d know how to. The brittle atmosphere almost feels like it’s been shattered, and you don’t if you can move without cutting yourself on the edges. Everything is raw, dissonant in some pervasive, detached way that’s impossible to quantify.

“Wow, that was awkward.”

Fuck!

“An excellent observation submitted by Investigator Pyrope,” you start, and wow, isn’t the exact configuration of the floor tiles _so interesting_. “Well! We’ve certainly acknowledged the shit out of that mortifying display of egregious emotion, I'd say it's just about time to wipe the last ten minutes from your think pan and pretend it never happened!”

“That sure sounds like a thing I’m not going to do,” Terezi says, and you’ve had it. You’re done.

“I don’t want to talk about this, and if you care for me in any capacity you’ll drop the fucking subject.” It doesn’t come out with the acrimonious vehemence you’d like to articulate, but it gets the point across.

“Now that’s an interesting perspective.” Terezi tilts her head, an exaggerated display of consideration plastered on her face. “Now here’s a different and objectively correct one: if I did that, I’d be a pretty terrible friend, Karkat.”

“Fine. Fine! How are we doing this? Is it time for me to figuratively eviscerate myself, or literally eviscerate myself? Are you just going to silently dissect every thought that’s ever crossed my think pan, or are we diving into a session of mutual eructated spewage until you’re satisfied with the volume of digestive fluid we’re left to wade through? Come on, give me some direction here.”

“It’s okay to be mad.”

“Of course I’m mad! I can’t go two seconds on this meteor with some sanctimonious shitwagon getting on my case—”

“ _Listen to me._ ”

Your mouth clicks shut.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

You don’t want to hear this.

“I know self-loathing is your whole thing, but it wasn’t your fault.”

You should have just let Dave put in Good Luck Chuck. You could’ve spent a terrific one hundred minutes of your life riffing on the greatest testament to humanity’s collective incompetence. Everything would’ve been fine.

“Did you really think we would’ve been okay if you just… disappeared?”

You don’t know how to answer that. So you don’t. You flip your cape over your head and curl into the couch, refusing to move until you hear receding footsteps and the crepitating discharge of the transportalizer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [5/20/2016 10:36:57 PM] Air: lit major voice : you see, karkat sitting on dave to impede the good luck chuck viewing parallels dave’s sitting on karkat to prevent him from obtaining a blackboard  
> [5/20/2016 10:37:15 PM] Air: this shows that the relationship is becoming more and more reciprocal  
> [5/20/2016 10:37:28 PM] Air: and that both sides are making sacrifices and keeping one another in check  
> [5/20/2016 10:38:19 PM] Air: however it also develops the conflict  
> [5/20/2016 10:38:37 PM] Air: of both trying to keep components of their culture alive that impede their own growth  
> [5/20/2016 10:38:54 PM] Stella: it's true  
> [5/20/2016 10:38:56 PM] Air: Karkat is fully devoted to the quadrant system  
> [5/20/2016 10:39:22 PM] Stella: the quadrant system isn't flawed at all, definitely  
> [5/20/2016 10:39:46 PM] Air: while dave is hung up on all of the toxic facets of human society that good luck chuck embodies  
> [5/20/2016 10:40:37 PM] Air: such as toxic masculinity, heteronormativity, fatphobia, the sexualisation of children, gender inequality  
> [5/20/2016 10:40:39 PM] Air: etc  
> [5/20/2016 10:40:59 PM] Air: OKAY I’M STOPPIGN HERE BECAUSE I’M GETTIGN TOO DEEP  
> [5/20/2016 10:41:07 PM] Air: INTO THE FAKE ANALYSIS  
> [5/20/2016 10:41:12 PM] Air: OF OUR OWN FIC


	14. Nostalgia sounds like nausea for a good fucking reason

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Realization Has a Mean Right Hook and So Does Karkat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is the point where we reiterate that we have no personal vendetta against Eridan, but that might appear rather fishy under the circumstances. It makes for a reely ominous hook. Or something.  
> Anyway, enjoy.  
> \- Air
> 
> this didn't go exactly where I thought it would but I've been WAITING FOR THIS.  
> Also, shoutout to sister. The few times I've played scary games she's never affected by scarechords or jumpscares because I'm so freaked out that apparently it makes her calm enough to laugh at me  
> -Stella

You’re not avoiding Dave.

You don’t have to, because he’s avoiding you.

But can it really be considered ‘avoidance’ if it spans less than half a night? It’s not like you spend every waking second together. Without all the surrounding context, this would probably be a perfectly reasonable time to spend apart. But there _is_ context. Deliberation adds substance to his absence, a caustic distance that leaves you disoriented, thrown off balance without his companionship as an assured and constant certainty.

You’re not used to this. You’re not used to feeling this suffusive, mephitic dread at the idea of talking to Dave, especially when it’s paired with some hollow anticipation, like you’re standing at the gallows and just waiting for the noose. And while you could make the slightest effort to drag yourself out of your figurative pit of anxiety with some kind of distraction, you… don't really want to. For one, nothing feels the slightest bit appealing; coding would be too involved, romcoms too mindless, and actually _talking_ to anyone? The thought of social interaction has you ready to claw your gander bulbs right out of their sockets, and your entire digestive tract recoils at the thought of harassing yourself. So eventually you just end up fucking off to wallow in your own personal slough of malaise, and it’s… comforting, almost, to wrap yourself in misery like a well-worn blanket.

Apparently you don’t know what to do with yourself when you’re not in the good graces of Dave fucking Strider. Talk about pathetic. And also, completely unwarranted on your part! You aren’t the one who fucked up here! You didn’t barrel in like the most egregious vehicle of ignorance stuffed to the brim with a trunkload of Nobody Asked! You didn’t ruin what could’ve been a perfectly pleasant evening! Morning. Afternoon? Fuck! Whatever!

So why do you feel like shit?

Like that’s a question worth asking. The depths of your self-contempt would have to be measured in leagues.

With that aspect of your deplorable existence thoroughly acknowledged, you wrap your cape even tighter around you, huddling back into your pile. The pressure is… it’s nice, but it’s nothing like the solace of being submerged in slime. There’s no soporific to ease your mind away from your constant barrage of incommodious thoughts, none of the weightless suspension you’ve grown up with, nothing that reminds you of home.

You close your eyes, and—

 

* * *

 

—you wake up on the Land of Pulse and Haze.

Or, no, there’s the violently crimson rivulets of the medium’s most personalized middle finger you’ve ever had the pleasure to receive, but there’s still the tiled floor of the meteor, so… maybe you didn’t go to sleep? Which means you’re passing through a bubble, and fuck, you should go to your block before some reanimated asshole decides to traipse around and mess with your stuff. You still haven’t gotten everything organized from the time that one John decided to take out every single one of your romcoms and switch out the cover inserts with printouts of Nicholas Cage’s hideous visage. Someone must’ve helped alchemize them, because they sure as hell didn’t disappear with the rest of the dream bubble.

But wait.

Weren’t you already at your respiteblock? And why is the common room so empty? Where are the pretentious ornamentations, the products of the Lalonde-Maryam campaign to cover everything with stylistic embellishments? The pointless horde of candelabras! Something is very, very wrong here, and you’re not going to stick around just to _run into Eridan apparently fucking shit._

You’re used to the tired old shanty of bumbling into dead acquaintances by now, so you’re expecting him to wrinkle his cartilaginous nub like you’re some putrescent piece of fecal matter he’s scraped off the bottom of his shoe. Or maybe to ask if you’ve seen whichever dead asshole he’s been frolicking around the afterlife with. Instead, he just _stares_ at you.

It gets uncomfortable really fast. Like seriously, what the fuck is his damage. “Let me guess,” you start, because this ocular stalemate is getting really fucking old. “You’re from a timeline where I got sick of your vacuous prattle and dove headfirst into the nearest pit of lava in the most gratuitous display of self-immolation ever performed. Well, good for me! At least one of us managed to escape your unrepentant incompetence.”

“You’re still alive.”

Alright, that’s a weird thing to say after being viciously roasted. “It’s been quite the struggle without your _incredible_ deductive capacities, but yes, I’m alive.” Seriously, is he ever going to stop staring? The white, vacant eyes, they’re… disconcerting. But looking away would mean admitting defeat, so fuck that. “Sorry to disappoint, if you’ve got any unfinished business with whatever version of me you’re shit out of luck.”

“So, funny you should mention that,” he says, and suddenly everything falls into place.

You punch him.

“Kar, what the _fuck_ -”

“Shut your disgusting, shitswallowing maw! That’s almost half a sweep’s worth of entirely justified outrage, pent up and prepared for deployment! If you weren’t dead I’d kill you myself!”

“Y’know,” he says, cradling his jaw as you hoist him up by the collar of his shirt. “I had a whole speech prepared. Memorized an’ everything. You would’ve loved it, I spent _hours_ on the hook—”

“Don’t you fucking pun at me when I’m about to verbally castrate you before _personally_ ripping off your bulge and shoving it down your own chute until you _shit it out_ —”

“That wasn’t a fuckin’—! I mean, shit, stop shakin’ me, it’s hailbu—  _habit_ , okay?! I don’t even like the fish puns! Just listen to me, you don’t got to do _any_ of that stuff.” He lets out a sigh of relief as you reluctantly cease your efforts to scramble his organs through sheer determination. “Look, it’s been _ages_ for me, Kar, I’ve reely—”

You punch him again.

“ _Fuck!_ What was that for, you can’t even tell—”

“ _Yes I can_ , and did you really think you’d get off that easy?” Memorizing a speech? Like that’s worth even a fraction of your time! “The first one, that was for Sollux. The second one was _going_ to be for Kanaya, but then you had to go and make _another fish pun_ , so I moved up the third one for Feferi’s sake! I’m abso-fucking-lutely sure that both of them would approve the change of schedule. Which reminds me.”

And that’s three for three! As long as it’s been, it’s not hard to channel the visceral array of acrimonious despair you’ve tried to forget. It sure as hell sucks to remember anything related to that particular massacre, but at least it gives you enough incentive to disregard any feeble inhibition and send him flying.

“Are you _done_.”

“You heard the fucking list you insufferable, malodorous pissant.” You take a seat next to where he’s landed, and he makes no move to get up, just dazedly staring at the crimson sky above. This is nice. You don’t have to see his offensive countenance. “I’m sure if I trawled the fetid murk of my think pan for the most bilious scraps of offal inscribed with your name, I could _definitely_ scrounge up more than enough motivation to reacquaint my fist with your face considering _everything you’ve done_ , but—”

“I’m sorry.”

Wait, what.

Eridan, being the transparent opportunist he is, takes advantage of your stunned silence to start spewing worthless babble from his repugnant orifice. “I’m startin’ to think maybe it’s not been as long for you, bubble time is fuckin’ weird, but it ree— _really_ has been agesfor me. I had a lot of time to think things over, to figure, yeah, I handled the situation pretty fuckin’ poorly. I was radically overestimatin’ how savvy I was to the machinations at play.”

Wow.

Alright.

You stand up.

You start walking.

Unfortunately, Eridan gets up to follow, trailing behind like the universe’s most repellant limpet. “Come on, I’m serious! I’m tryin’ to apologize—”

“What makes you think I want to hear it,” you snap, walking faster.

“Don’t be like that Kar, at the _very least_ I deserve—”

“Nothing! You deserve absolutely nothing!”

“I just—”

“No!”

You’re starting to approach a full-out sprint, which he’s keeping pace with because apparently ghosts don’t need to breathe, something you’re learning right now because he just _keeps talking_ , effortlessly maintaining his endless stream of unconscionable drivel while you’re most definitely starting to wheeze, and fuck, is the layout of the dream meteor different? Of course it fucking is. Bright red seeps through the cracks between the tiles, and random spires protrude from a misplaced horizon, so why should you be surprised at the onslaught of intersections that shouldn’t fucking exist.

Eridan still won’t shut the fuck up, even though you haven’t been listening for an eternity and a half, so you do what you do best and just fucking yell. It’s the least efficient use of air you could possibly indulge in, and your lungs immediately retaliate with a bellicose ferocity powerful enough to nebulize an entire galaxy, but you don’t care! You’ll win this fight through sheer willpower! You will yell until paradox space itself strikes you down! You will be victorious!

Which is an admirable enough conviction to hold, but this incredibly necessary reallocation of energy has the unavoidable consequence of exhausting you at an exponential rate, and Eridan takes advantage of your decrease in speed to tackle you to the fucking ground.

“You were a great friend and I didn’t appreciate you nearly enough when I was alive!”

“Get off of me, you regurgitated heap of sewage!”

“I’m sorry I never took your advice! It was always really good!”

“Fuck you!”

“Um.”

You take a break from trying to strangle Eridan with his own scarf, which, to be honest, had been proving to be a gargantuan leap beyond the realm of difficult considering you have the grand total of one prong at your disposal. But rest assured, you’re not giving up; you just don’t want to be rude. Whoever decided to show up late to the get-you-the-fuck-away-from-this-shitheel party deserves a proper greeting.

It’s Dave.

Fuck. Of course it is.

“I heard yelling and I thought, well, fuck, sounds like Karkat’s throwing a vintage shitfit. Doesn’t sound much like one of his nouveau shitfits, so he must have run into some antique tantrum material.”

He has no fucking _idea_.

“This guy bothering you, crabpuff?”

You’re torn between telling him to fuck off, and actually accepting any assistance he has to offer. It’s. Fuck! It’s really great to know he still has your back, and you can feel your pump biscuit fill with unwilling elation. You’re still fucking pissed, but right now that has a lot to do with the contemptible mass of refuse currently weighing you down.

“Do you _mind_.” Somehow, Eridan’s still able to speak despite the wad of scarf partially clogging his chagrin tunnel. “I’m tryin’ to have a conversation here.”

You can physically feel the waves of incredulous scrutiny radiating from behind the shades. Apparently his definition of ‘conversation’ doesn’t involve grappling on the floor while screaming incoherently. Go figure. But instead of commenting on this completely standard interaction, Dave asks, “Aren't you the weird fish dude that hit on Rose that one time?”

Of course he did.

“I don’t know what you’re talkin' about, that could’ve been anyone.” Eridan turns to you with a wounded look, affront practically written across his face. “Why does he get to use the puns? He’s not even a sea dweller.”

“You know what.” You take advantage of Fishfuck Pissant’s distraction to shove him off, extricating yourself from the tangle of his shit fashion. “I’m only saying this once, so listen up: apology acknowledged. Fuck, maybe you really have grown as a person. Good for you! But I don’t want to see your face for at least fifty sweeps, minimum. That’s what happens when you murder a couple of mutual friends.” And as much as you’d love to leave with that acerbic send-off, a pestiferous, unironic “take care of yourself” escapes before you take your leave. Without a word, Dave follows close behind. You’re not quite sure where you’re heading, but. Whatever. Anywhere’s fine as long as it’s away from Eridan.

 

* * *

 

Apparently this particular ‘anywhere’ turns out to be your old hive.

Well. Your old hive post-Pyrope.

There’s something jarring about seeing it stuck haphazardly into the meteor like an afterthought, stretching up impossibly high. The ceilings of the meteor can seem like an endless distance away, but that’s nothing compared to an actual lack of conceivable asymptotic limits. Plus, that sure is one hell of a color contrast. Your entire hive is an entire mess of primaries, along with a splash of other assorted eye-searing colors. If you crane your neck, you can see the incredibly flattering portrait Terezi took the time to add while you were scrambling to avoid certain death. But you have better things to do than appreciate fine art. You walk right on in, and from the inside it's like nothing's changed at all. Like you really are back on your planet.

“So, this is your pad, huh? Seems like we always end up at my place. Or the land of sugar and fursonas. Which isn’t the most common land, but fuck if it isn’t the most memorable. I mean, let’s face it, both of our lands aren’t exactly the pinnacle of prime real estate, so dental-nightmare furaffinity’s probably a better bet anyway.”

It’s the first thing he’s elected to say after you’ve safely escaped from Eridan’s odious presence, and of course, he has to lead with some of his inane chatter. It’d be absolutely wonderful if he could just rip off the proverbial bandage and get to the fucking point, but also, maybe you wouldn’t be too opposed to an endless meandering ramble that entirely neglects the slowly starving trunkbeast in the room. Except you really would. You’ve been ready to explode for the past few hours, and Dave knows it.

He clears his throat. “Right. We should… probably talk.”

Usually that’s a surefire phrase to start a volley of strident sirens, but this is exactly what you’ve been waiting for. Plus, Dave can’t stand still.

He’s practically vibrating with barely-suppressed energy, rocking on his heels with a strategically casual set to his posture, not to mention the carefully blank expression that’s constantly angled towards anywhere that isn’t you: all of it projects how fucking terrified he is. There’s nothing like knowing the other person’s an anxious wreck to get you zen as fuck. You don’t know what could possibly be scaring Dave so bad that he’d look this nervous just initiating this dialogue, and you’re half expecting him to do something drastic to escape.

What you’re not expecting is for Dave to hug you.

Even with (because of?) this sudden proximity, it takes a disproportionate amount of effort to focus on what’s coming out of Dave’s mouth. “So, like, I’m going to be embarrassingly candid here,” and wow, that’s always a promising way to start, “I’m... really glad I met you. I’m glad you’re alive, and it kind of sucks that you don’t feel the same way about yourself.” You’re close enough that you can feel the hitch in his voice. “I get that you're hyperbolic as fuck and you mean maybe like, half the things you say—”

“I mean everything I say.” If you’re going to be stuck like this, you might as well wrap your arms around him. Your voice is the most stable and calm it’s ever fucking been; fuck anyone who says differently. “I’m the utmost paragon of sincerity. Whoever’s spreading this slander can rip off one of their undulating shame globes and shove it up their nook.”

“Were you alright with being killed?”

It comes out in a rush, almost like he doesn’t want to ask the question, to hear its answer, and is this why he’s so on edge?

“Of course I wasn't.” You’ve been desperately clinging to life since you’ve had the misfortune of being zapped into existence by your own incompetence. In fact, your sense of self-preservation is probably the most sensitive out of everyone currently alive, considering you’re _pretty aware_ of your mortal status. “If I had a death wish, I would’ve just marched to the nearest imperial drone and skewered myself on its spikes.”

“Okay. That’s good to know.” He still hasn’t moved, so you guess this is what’s going down. Standing in the middle of your old hive with your arms around an alien. This isn’t awkward at all. And of course, it’s now of all times that Dave shuts his squawk blister. You were expecting _a bit_ more from him, but looks like it’s up to you to get this talk going, so... you fill the silence. It’s easy enough, without having to look at him.

“Don’t you dare tell anyone about this, and I mean _ever_ , but... I used to have this embarrassing fantasy that I’d grow up one day and become a threshecutioner. And before you ask, they’re the deadliest squad of interstellar fighters under the command of the empress— they conquered more planets than any other imperial force. But it would’ve been impossible for me to make the cut.”

You used to think up all sorts of all sorts of elaborate scenarios to justify your place among the elite. You just had to prove you were worth it. That you were exceptional. No one could say a word against you if you were the best. Except you weren’t.

“It sucked, but the empress— she knew what she was doing. If I ever came face to face with her she would've culled the shit out of me on sight, but you know what? She was incredible. Being the leader is hard fucking work, and she knew how to get shit done. She didn’t put up with dissension from worthless bilgesacks who couldn’t lead a squadron out of a wet paper bag. That’s what leadership is. Being in control.”

“That’s not your leadership,” Dave says.

Way to miss the fucking point. “That’s why I was a shit leader, asshole.”

“No, listen to me,” he insists, squeezing you tighter for a moment. “You didn’t have to act like her impersonal contemplation to keep your friends alive. How many sessions got past a final boss prototyped _twelve_ times, and shit, weren’t one of those prototypes an outer fucking god the size of a city?”

“Yeah. Great job I did there. It only took a day after that for everyone to collectively lose their shit.” Coming out with just over a third of your teammates after doing nothing to prevent the ensuing bloodshed, now _that_ sure is a sterling example of leadership. “What’s the point of a victory if it’s immediately rescinded by some unfathomable, already-scripted bullshit? It’s not like we won anything aside from a preordained ‘fuck you’ handed down on high from Paradox Space.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that you got everyone through your session. You managed to herd eleven bloodthirsty, belligerent teenagers toward a common goal, and judging from the juicy gossip all these dead trolls love laying out, that’s really fucking impressive. You kept them from killing each other; you beat your final fucking boss with everyone relatively intact! Doesn’t that mean anything to you? Because trust me, being alive sure as hell meant something to them. Maybe your priorities are out of whack by Alternian standards, but I’m pretty sure it’s why you got so close to winning.”

He moves to rest his forehead on your shoulder, and his hair is… really fucking soft, a peculiar texture barely anything like your coarse filaments, and isn’t it strange how you’ve gotten used to it?

“Look, Earth wasn't that great. I know you're like well, duh, but it was hard for me to figure out why it wasn't great. What made it not great.” Dave pulls away, just enough to push up his shades and rub at his lookstubs. For a second it looks like he’s going to let them fall back where they belong, but he doesn’t. The shades stay up.

You’re fixed in place by this sudden presentation of unobstructed Strider eyes as he says, arms still draped around you, “It made me feel like shit. It made me feel like shit, and I never realized until Earth was dead and we were surrounded by literal aliens who also had a shit time. But hey, there’s some stuff those aliens got right out of a lot they got wrong, and wouldn’t life be so much easier to just... forget some of the Earth stuff? Maybe not obsess over what I’m allowed to feel based on a culture that kind of wanted to screw me over? And I figure, maybe I don’t have to. Maybe I don’t have to lug around all the Earth baggage, maybe some stuff isn’t worth packing in my itty bitty carry-on because we’re flying Delta and shit has to fit with the size policy. And you know what? Maybe there’s a big chunk of stuff that’s fucking garbage. Stuff that’s not worth keeping. And maybe Alternia is the same.” It’s so easy to see the flash of emotion across his face, so viscerally dynamic compared to what you’re used to. “I mean, I’m not saying Alternia’s fucking garbage. Just, like... maybe some of the shit that was part of Alternia.”

Dave takes a deep breath. “I get that Alternia’s important to you, even if I can't understand what’s exactly tying you to it. I wouldn’t expect you to understand the shackle between me and Earth, either. It’s your home. I can respect that. But I can't just sit back and let you rip yourself apart at the seams, holding yourself to the standards of a planet that’s long gone.”

You can see the sky through the window, virulently violet clouds scattered across a red backdrop. It’s dark enough that the color is muted, like the aftermath of a blood clot. Almost rust, but not quite.

“Is it so wrong to want to prove I'm not some horrible mistake of nature?” You ask, breaking the silence.

“You’re not.”

“You keep thinking about this from a human perspective.”

“Maybe I’m just thinking about this from my perspective,” he fires back, and it feels like it should be a challenge, but it comes out too soft. Gentle, almost. “Maybe I’m looking at my best friend. Nothing wrong with the view, other than the fact that he’s convinced he has to hate himself.”

“You don't understand.”

“Then help me.”

How can you when he doesn’t even understand what he’s asking? What are you supposed to do, condense sweeps and sweeps of everything you’ve ever internalized? Everything you’ve been told, every explicit statement, every implicit hint that’s been laid out before your life like the shittiest word search ever conceived?

It’s… harder to talk with him staring directly at you, hard to even breathe, so you close the gap, fitting yourself back against him to continue the longest, most awkward hug you’ve ever had in your life. Coward.

“The mutation doesn’t even begin to cover it.” That’s a good start. “I’m a failure of a troll in every way. It’s not enough that I don’t fit on the hemospectrum; I don’t fit _anywhere_. I sure as hell wasn’t the tank on the team, and you can probably guess who handled strategy. The only reason we got as far as we did was because the others picked up my slack. What’s the point of a troll that’s useless in battle? It’s literally what we’re hatched for.”

You’re just so tired of being like this.

“The only thing I’m good at is criticizing shitty plot twists and getting emotional. Fuck, I can’t even do _that_ right.”

You hate this. You hate how vulnerable you are, and you hate what an inherent part of you it is.

“I know how this is supposed to work, I do, but I keep feeling too much, all at once, and I'm not supposed to— I shouldn't be...”

He pushes you away, and you think, maybe he _finally_ understands, except he hasn’t let go. He’s just got you far enough that you’re face-to-face with him, and he looks kind of terrified, indecisive, like he doesn't know whether to run away or stand his ground. “What are you feeling?”

You wake up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [5/23/2016 5:16:43 PM] Air: thank god you’re doing this with me stella because i was just. Hmm Should Karkat Punch him and you just straight up  
> [5/23/2016 5:16:46 PM] Air: TIME TO PUNCH  
> [5/23/2016 5:16:54 PM] Air: Yes Good  
> [5/23/2016 5:17:00 PM] Stella: I've been waiting for this  
> [5/23/2016 5:17:09 PM] Air: I’m always Wobbly like “oh that seems violent"  
> [5/23/2016 5:17:14 PM] Air: meanwhile Stella  
> [5/23/2016 5:18:02 PM] Stella: I'M ALWAYS READY TO THROW DOWN


	15. A slow descent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which There Is A Characteristic Amount of Floundering, Which is To Say Far More Than is Desirable or Necessary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to a very special egg, you're heckin' welcome  
> -Stella
> 
> Thanks for inspiring A Very Important Component of this, Tara. You'll know it when you see it.  
> -Air

So you’re most definitely avoiding Dave.

Not actually though! Maybe just for like, a few hours. You pride yourself on not being as much of a feculent asshole as you could be, and you’re not that much of a shitheel. No, you just— you just need some space to sort things out. You need to lay out all of your thoughts and emotions until you think you can verbalise them without launching an endless stream of bile halfway across the meteor. You need a soundboard, and it needs to be someone who _isn’t your future self_ because that’s _literally never worked,_ and the one time you tried, you got ‘ TALK ABOUT YOUR ISSUES WITH SOMEONE ELSE, YOU BUNGLING BUCKET OF FESTERING DISCHARGE’ before you blocked yourself. Which is by far the most cordial interaction you’ve had with yourself, but. You need someone that’ll actually listen to you. You need someone that understands where you’re coming from. You need someone with at least the bare minimum of common fucking courtesy.

You need to talk to Kanaya.

She’s usually not too hard to find; if she’s not in the common room, she’s probably in her block. Unless she’s got another date lined up, which would be great! For her! But block is what you’re really banking on because the common room’s way too public, and like _hell_ you’re gonna drag her away from a date so she can listen to your overwrought repining. No. Respiteblock or bust.

Despite those pretty good odds, you’re not really expecting her to be there. You can say with authority, completely free of exaggeration, zero hyperbole whatsoever, that the universe hates your fucking guts. You are _absolutely_ its favorite punching bag, no question. So yeah, with that track record you were already half-resigned to failure, preparing for the potential and unfortunate necessity of actually going after future-you for a conversation spanning more than one line.

What you’re not expecting is for her to be examining a pattern, alone, in the middle of her respiteblock with the door obviously open and welcome to visitors and, honestly, if this is the single shining moment that Paradox Space has elected to come through for you, if this one instance is the complete dissemination of every scrap of good fortune left in your pathetic life, then that’s just fine by you.

You knock on the open door, because you’re not such a rude nookstain that you’d just barge in and hold her conversational hostage. “Hey, so, can we talk?”

“But of course. I am almost always willing to discuss any number of topics with you.” Thank the hideous writhing appendages of every outer god in existence. Is Kanaya ever not going to be your favorite? No. Impossible. “I was, in fact, considering what would be a good time to arrange a pleasant palaver before you charged in and rendered such plans unnecessary.”

“Well, that’s pretty fucking convenient.” This is probably how light players get to feel _all the time_ , the spoiled shitsacks. “Any chance you’re willing to have it in private?”

Kanaya considers you for a moment, her brow wrinkling in concern as she sets down her pattern. But, instead of asking any questions, instead of raising a fuss, she just walks over to close the door. “Will that suffice?”

Success! You are one step closer to solving a fraction of your many, many issues. All you have to do is start talking.

Any time now.

Yep.

You have no fucking idea where to start.

“Your hair has been getting rather long,” she notes, after an obvious and uncomfortable silence. “It looks rather tangled as well.”

Ah, petty indignation, now that’s something you can always count on. “Excuse me, but _some_ of us have better things to do than experiment with whatever mucilaginous solution the humans deign to alchemize for their personal hygiene. What’s even the point anyway? Without slime, this shit’s impossible to manage.”

Before you even finish your completely valid explanation she’s already guiding you to a chair, brush at the ready, and you mutter vaguely unflattering things about, shit, her books or something. Whatever. Looks like you’ll just have to accept your fate.

Kanaya works in near silence, just patiently teasing the tangles apart, and it’s… nice. It’s nice to just relax and let someone take care of you without worrying about fifty thousand things at once. It’s nice to just relax with your friend.

You're halfway to falling asleep again when she asks, “What did you want to talk about?”

Shit. That’s right. You guess you should _probably_ start verbalizing what it is that’s on your mind. Just. Explicitly lay it out. Frank, open, and honest. Drop the circuitous subtext, the nuanced diction, the analogous parables. Time to shelve the magnifying glass because shit’s about to get perspicuous and straight-fucking-forward.

“So! How was your date!”

Nailed it.

“Oh. Oh! Well…” Kanaya trails off, lighting up with a brief burst of particularly luminescent brilliance, and now you’re invested. What has Lalonde done? Any details supporting your hypothesis about their imminent retreat to a lawnring enclosure must be divulged immediately.

“If you will pardon the wordplay— which I know you will not, but I will proceed anyway— Rose was radiant.”

Oh come _on_.

“Karkat, please.” She gives the brush a particularly sharp tug, which, ow, uncalled for. “When you move your head in such a manner it becomes quite hard to avoid pulling at your hair.”

“What, is a delicate sigh accompanied by the slightest tilt of my cranial plate enough to confound your rainbow drinker reflexes?”

“It is when performed quite dramatically, as proves true of all your endeavors.”

Well, fine. You cross your arms with the most minimal amount of movement possible, glaring straight ahead. Not an effective way to convey your annoyance considering she can’t see your expression, but whatever. You live for frivolous acts of inconsequential furor. Look how undramatic you are. Placid as a sopor’d-up spleenfowl. “So?”

“So, what?”

“Don’t get coy with me, Maryam.”

“Oh, I apologize. Was that a cue to resume my recollection of events?” She sounds way too amused. There’s no doubt about it; Rose is rubbing off on her in all the worst ways.

“The sarcasm isn’t as funny as you think it is.”

“I find I have grown rather fond of it, and will continue to use it for as long as I see fit.” Kanaya hums thoughtfully, tugging a particularly stubborn knot apart. “She attempted— very valiantly— to be what the humans refer to as ‘smooth’.”

You can’t stop the sharp bark of laughter that escapes, and there goes all your efforts of being a petulant wiggler.

“Yes, they both try their hardest, don’t they?” Her voice is so openly affectionate that you can practically _hear_ the wry grin that’s no doubt fixed across her face. “While attempting to teach me how to properly crochet a shawl, she entangled the both of us in yarn, which was most certainly an ill-disguised attempt at seduction.”

Holy shit, Lalonde.  

“It was quite humorous, both in the moment and in retrospect; she is far more willing to laugh at herself than she would have you believe.” With a quiet laugh of her own, Kanaya successfully runs a prong through a section of your hair. “We then proceeded to discuss the merits of a human tradition by the name of ‘lawn bowling,’ and whether or not we might be capable of alchemizing the necessary materials. It is fascinating that we could discuss such trivial things for so long, and yet they did not feel trivial at all when we were discussing them. Isn’t that strange?”

“Yeah,” you say. “It’s pretty fucking inexplicable.”

She hums her agreement. There’s a long beat of silence before you speak up again.

“So it’s… definitely flushed? Or are you doing some weird alien equivalent?”

“We have come to the mutual agreement that a matespritship best fits our respective expectations for a relationship, while remaining open to certain caveats.” There’s a shift in her glow, a small flicker you’ve come to associate with a very specific expression of rueful resignation. “I thought it only fair to warn her that I foresee some ashen meddling, as auspisticism seem to hang about me in the manner of a peculiar scent.” That’d explain it. Thankfully, it stabilizes before you can get a headache. “Likewise, I would not be surprised if at some point Rose wanted to examine the intricacies of caliginous relationships on a more personal level, or if other pale leanings manifested during our journey, and while neither of us are currently interested in any particular individual that would suit us within the bounds of those quadrants… Well, who knows what might happen? We are allowing for the potential of quadrant exploration without being fully committed to its necessity.”

“And it… works for you?” It’s a question that comes out hesitant in all the wrong ways, fuck. “You’re both happy about it,” you try, because that’s definitely what you were asking in the first place.

Kanaya pauses in her work for a moment. You can’t even begin to guess what she’s thinking, but it’s not long before she continues, “I believe it is working because I am me, and Rose is Rose. I have never felt the need to look beyond the quadrant system. On the other prong, Rose is incredibly invested with familiarizing herself with it.”

No kidding.

“Rose is everything I could ever want in a matesprit, far beyond the standard qualification of requited red feelings,” she says, and honestly you’re starting to feel some secondhand embarrassment. But not embarrassment, really, it just… gets you flustered, hearing about obviously flushed inclinations going so smoothly, a sympathetic flutter of vertigo, just, wow. Good for her. “She’s articulate and cagey, a challenging combination, but it’s all the more satisfying to match her wits. She is unexpectedly clumsy at inopportune moments, but she’s always ready to jump at the chance to turn the situation to her favor, whether or not that actually entails saving face. I quite prefer when it does not.” Kanaya rests her prong on your shoulder, and for a second it almost hurts to look at it. Shit, maybe rainbow drinkers really do have a bit of sunlight trapped beneath their skin.

But also, that’s trashy romanticized bullshit penned from only the most incompetent of writers. Shame on you for even entertaining that thought in the privacy of your think pan.

“Our relationship works as it does because of what each of us want, and how we are willing to compromise. Therefore, it is as your friend that I advise you to keep this in mind: any arrangement that suits Rose and myself is one that specifically works for us. I would not attempt to emulate our solution to an exact degree if I were in your position.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” you say in a textbook example of incriminating fallacy. Your social acumen knows no bounds.

“I certainly do not mind giving advice, as I understand that I am currently the only one who shares some aspect of this unique circumstance with you. Also, I do enjoy talking about Rose. It’s not often I find myself able to boast about a successful relationship, and I fully intend to exhaust any and all opportunity given to me. Now…” She reaches for something, then, with a final tug, lets go. “Does that feel better?”

You cock your head from one side to the other, feeling an unfamiliar shift in weight. Huh. You reach up to tactilely examine Kanaya’s work, and jeez, you didn’t realize how long your hair’s gotten; there’s enough for a decent amount to be gathered up and tied with something elastic, and it’s… weird, but useful, you guess. “Switching your focus from fabric?”

Kanaya gasps in facetious mortification. “Perish the thought. Rose alchemized a variety of these bands, and for lack of anything to do with them, gave several to me.” She lifts an arm, and wow, her wrist is covered with them. “They’re quite colorful, aren’t they? I think green suits you.”

“You think green suits everyone.” You _could_ suggest the existence of a personal bias, but you won’t, because it’s fucking obvious. “Why would Rose make something she wouldn’t use?”

“From what I gathered, they remind her of a friend.”

 

* * *

 

Eventually Kanaya has to head up for her lookout shift. The conversation was cathartic, kind of, even though you didn't do too much of the talking for once. Just being around someone who’s so blasé about what you thought as an enduring constant to live by, that gives you something to think about. Right now, you're thinking you're maybe halfway towards possibly approaching ready to… actually talk to…

Yeah who are you kidding, you’ll never be ready. You just. You need more time to think. But that’s time you don't get because as you step on the transportalizer it chooses _right then_ to activate, and guess who's there to almost knock you on your ass! _It’s Dave_. And it’s ‘almost knock you on your ass’ instead of ‘knock you flat on your ass’ because he manages to catch you by the wrist as you're flailing off balance. Which is. Great.

“Sorry! Sorry.” He moves to pull back, but seems to realize that giving you an escape route might not be the best way to corner you into an extremely necessary conversation. “We should talk,” he says, and maybe it’s supposed to sound firm, full of conviction and certainty, but you're getting the impression that if you so much as clear your chitinous windhole he just might faint.

“Yeah. Okay.”

“I mean, if now’s not a good time—”

“It’s fine.”

“—who knows your busy schedule looks like, not me, wouldn’t want to—”

“I said it’s fine. Can we not do it in the middle of the fucking hallway?”

“That’s— yeah, a good point, sorry, we should. Let’s just.” He pivots abruptly, dragging you towards one of the empty storage rooms. The door slides shut with the grace of a guillotine.

And there’s silence.

Is this what every single interaction you have is going to be like from now on? A mandatory and excruciating length of time where nobody says anything? Is abandoning your post as self-designated silence breaker going to haunt the rest of your life? Except, no, he’s taking a breath, and you guess he’s just going for it. What a champ.

“Your hair looks nice.”

What.

“ _Fuck,_ that was not what I was going to say. Ignore that, let me— let me start over. Okay, look. I know sometimes it’s like I can’t have a single conversation without talking about myself, but I can’t really figure out a better way to show you that I get it. So like, if this sounds self-absorbed, I’m sorry. I’m trying my best.”

He still hasn’t let go of your wrist. It feels like an anchor, almost. Or maybe you’re the anchor.

“I know you weren't really doing it on purpose, but you kinda helped me think through some stuff. Like, okay. Every single time we’ve watched Good Luck Chuck you point out _another_ reason it’s utter garbage, and wow, there’s so much just obviously bad about it, but then you peel back the underlying layers of garbage to get at the _double-buried_ garbage, and it’s not just a joke with zero comedic value, it’s a joke that struts across the stage like the queen bee at prom night because she _knows_ she’s got it in the bag, and this is, of course, right before our intrepid protagonist bursts in to steal the spotlight. But we don’t get that in Good Luck Chuck, or in any movie like it. Fuck, what am I saying, of course we don’t— there’s no prom in Good Luck Chuck.”

His grip is loose enough to slip out of, but you don’t move much; you just pull enough so you’re actually holding hands, which isn’t any less awkward, but now you can. Reassure him? Fuck, you don’t know what you’re trying to do, but apparently it’s working because he seems to take it as encouragement.

“The point is, all that bullshit assumes it’s funny because it’s built its house on all these absurd ideals and beliefs, but whoops, these absurd ideals are exactly the bullshit we’re fed since birth so _of course_ no one on the writing staff takes a second to realize how incredibly terrible everything is. Gay panic? Sexual harassment? Talk about the pinnacle of comedic wit. Great job Seth, get that shit to the screen.”

“Who the fuck is Seth?”

“Let me tell you something Karkat, if there’s _ever_ an unrepentantly atrocious affront to the very concept of humor, there’s a Seth behind it. Seth’s the middle-aged frat boy who thinks being offensive and shitting on minorities is a viable form of satire. Seth’s the cat that’s brought a dead mouse, looking at you like it’s the greatest gift anyone could possibly ask for, dinner is served, you’re fucking welcome, and in this case I guess the mouse is ‘toxic masculinity’. Yeah, it’s disgusting, and given the choice you wouldn’t want that shit anywhere near you, but this is just business as usual so you don’t even question it, down the hatch it goes. Fuck. I’m not making sense.” He pinches the divot of his cartilaginous nub, muttering something unintelligible. “I’m just gonna drop the analogies, which is pretty fucking difficult, so bear with me here. Just... Tell me you haven’t felt the same.”

Your first instinct is a resounding ‘fuck no, I don’t even know what you’re talking about’, but you can see his eyes through the opaque lens of his shades, a muted desperation, and the words die as soon as they cross your think pan. Instead...

“What are you supposed to do when the most relatable character always ends up being the punchline of an elaborate joke. When their existence _is_ the punchline of an elaborate joke.”

He pulls you into a hug, which seems to be an increasingly common occurrence.

“Nobody else has to deal with this engorged pustule of a problem,” you say into his shoulder. “Nobody alive, at least. Nobody who’d stay alive for long.” You’ve only gotten this far by being intensely paranoid and hyper-aware of every _possibility_ for potential danger, which on Alternia was hard fucking work. But isn't it a fucking riot that even if you _did_ avoid getting culled for your mutation, you’d just eventually get skewered by an imperial drone whenever it would’ve come knocking at your hive. Hilarious. “Here I am, self-proclaimed expert in romance, and I’ve botched every quadrant in a gratuitous display of self-sabotage because everything keeps bleeding into each other and it’s not supposed to work like that.”

Fuck, actually saying it out loud, to another person, it’s... a lot to handle. You thought you made a little progress, made the smallest amount of peace with being abhorrently incompetent in every facet of your existence, but no. Why the fuck is it always one microscopic step forward, two gargantuan leaps back.

You don’t know if you can deal with this, actually. You’re thinking of calling it quits for now, or at least requesting a brief intermission in this brewing shitstorm of overwrought emotional drama because, guess what, Karkat Vantas can’t go two seconds without freaking the fuck out, but then Dave squeezes your shoulder, drawing back enough to rest his forehead against yours.

“Okay,” he breathes, and it’s enough to get your pump biscuit going into overdrive for a brief second, does he always have to be _so close_ , “I know you’re all bent out of shape about this, but here and now, is it really so bad?”

Your face must perfectly convey ‘way to ask a question not worth the energy of a monosyllabic response’, because with an irritated huff he leans back and just fucking headbutts you. Not hard, but still. Ow.

“Listen to me, you just... feel everything with this intense sincerity, and that’s just how you are. I honestly… Fuck, for a really long time, I was convinced that this was all some shtick of yours. That you were exaggerating how you felt for like, comedic effect or something. But then I started to get to know you, and it was honestly so mind-blowing to realize that you felt that much, that you were so upfront about it all the time.”

From here, you can see exactly how he’s steeling himself for an onslaught of emotional candor, the way he briefly glances to the side, the way he bites his lip, and the way his grip around you tightens the slightest bit as he says, “I’m sincerely so fucking glad that you feel so much, dude, and I know that Alternia might’ve decided it was wrong, but that wasn’t your fault.” He takes a deep breath, and when he actually steps back you have to stop yourself from following. “So, like, I’ve spent a lot of time getting caught up in this weird stoicism bullshit, and it kind of shifted my entire worldview to spend time with someone with an emotional range that stretches beyond ‘nonexistent’. You made it seem normal. Like, even if the emotion doesn’t fit, or it’s too much, or too little, it’s alright, it’s something you’re allowed to feel because goddamn are you ever feeling it. And I keep thinking that maybe you’re feeling the same way I do?”

Now that he’s not plastered against you it’s like he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He stands like he’s just about ready to take off at full-sprint, but no, even though the cadence of his voice has a hitch of uncertainty, there’s resolve there, no force in the entirety of Paradox Space and beyond is going to move him until whatever he wants to say ends up getting said.

“Like, from what I've picked up, quadrants had a lot of societal stuff going on. And not to rag on it, but maybe— just maybe— without that context, it’s not as set in fucking stone? Like the clubs whatever, it's supposed to be exhausting because you’re literally responsible for keeping two assholes from killing each other, but what if you don't have that junk on your plate anymore? I mean. On a meteor with five trolls and _very_ limited options, I doubt anyone’s gonna let a situation like that get out of control.”

It’s… pretty fucking clear where he’s going with this, but you can’t just. That’s now how. “What are you saying?” Is what comes out, barely a question.

“What I’m saying,” and here he points at you with open prongs, a firm set to his shoulders, “is that I’ve kinda noticed your romance foursquare confusion. You’re not exactly subtle—”

“Oh that’s _rich_ , coming from you.”

“How about we don't hone in on what a wreck I am, and instead, you hear me out.”

“That’s what I’ve been doing this entire time,” you don’t say. “You’re not a wreck,” you don’t say. “Then get to the point,” is what you finally decide on.

“So, human dating can be kind of bullshit, and maybe troll dating can also be kind of bullshit. Or maybe it isn't bullshit and there’s just, like, a _shit-ton_ of societal hang-ups that keep getting in the way. But, also, it doesn't really matter because humans and trolls are dead. So... maybe we don't have to human-date, or troll-date. Maybe we can just…” He shrugs. “Date? Weird, nebulous red-date. Maybe, that’s… there’s a possibility that it might be something that could, uh, fit us?”

He’s acting like you’ve never tried, which to be fair, you… haven’t, really, but you do have _experience_. “What do you expect me to do? No one can sink this much emotion into someone else. It doesn't work.” You cross your arms, shrinking into yourself, and fuck, why are you always like this. “I know it doesn't.”

“It does for humans,” he fires back, “and maybe it does for you! Look, the quadrant stuff— a lot of it makes sense on Alternia, for trolls. We're not on Alternia, and I'm not a troll. Sure, you’ve never seen it work out in front of you. I never saw any dude happy with another dude, either! But then I got to meet a bunch of aliens who don’t give a flying fuck about gender, and here you are, face-to-face with an alien who has a theoretical understanding of romance foursquare and no desire for practical application because fuck, if I see you having a panic attack I'm not gonna be like oh, shit, I want to smooch that guy’s face, I'd better get someone else to handle that biz, and if I talk you down from performing an acrobatic pirouette off the fucking handle that’s not gonna affect _any_ inclinations I have towards face-mashing! I don’t work that way, Karkat,” he says. “ _You_ don’t work that way.”

He didn’t have to say it like that.

“Fuck. Sorry.” He lets out a sigh, and the desperate conviction that’s been building up is gone. He’s exhausted. You are, too. “I just don’t want to see you beat yourself up about being who you are. Just... maybe consider the possibility it’s okay to want something different from what you're told to? Maybe it’s okay to be different than how you're supposed to be?”

Again, there’s that immediate and visceral need to vehemently deny even the slightest possibility that this is anything but wrong, but… he’s asking you instead of telling you, and you wonder what the full significance of this particular ‘no’ would be. There’s some raw, thrumming undercurrent beneath the question, like a pulse under a bruise, and you... well.

“Do you really think we can make this work?”

It doesn’t come out as confident, as challenging as you’d like, but it’s out there. That certainly was a thing. Said by you. No take-backs. But it’s fine because he barrels into you with a breathy laugh of hysterical relief, and what the fuck Dave it’s not like there was even a hint of implication that you were actually agreeing to this whatever-it-is, but it’s hard to argue against the way he says, “Shit, man, I don’t know anything about anything but I just really, _really_ like you, and I think you like me too, and it’d be super fucking sweet if we gave us a shot.”

Who are you kidding, you can’t say no. You never wanted to. The thing is, you know what it’s like to be achingly close to success, to be seconds away from stumbling into something new, something that’s yours, only for it to be taken away. And the thought of that is terrifying, especially if it’s with Dave; there’s a part of you that _still won’t shut up_ about the need to show some fucking rationality, what if it goes wrong, what if you fuck it up, what if, what if, what if, but. You don’t want to take this away from yourself.

So you won’t.

“Alright,” you say.

“Is that ‘alright I’m gonna think about it’ or ‘alright let’s make this shit happen,’ because I’d really like that clarified.”

“We are wrapped in a tender fucking embrace after you’ve heavily implied _multiple times_ that you want to “smooch” my face. Is it really so hard to read between the lines?”

“Yep. I am but a simple human being, hopelessly incapable of reading the atmosphere. You know we can’t find our own ass without some outside assistance. I’m gonna need verbal confirmation that you’re picking up what I’m laying down.”

“You transparent fucking douche,” you huff. “Fine! I like you too! I like you so much I don’t know what to do with myself. Like! What would— fuck. What are we even calling this? Like… fuck.”

He’s done it. Dave fucking Strider has finally robbed you of your ability to elucidate your thoughts. But now that it’s an implicit fact you’re not entirely opposed to smooching his face, he’s completely relaxed, emanating an obnoxious deluge of happiness. “Do we even need to call it something? I mean, I know Rose loves her labels, and I know you’re attached at the fucking hip to your compartmentalization and shit, but I don’t think we really need them when we're fucking aliens—  I mean, we’re not— shit.”

Both of you let go so that you can engage in the entirely necessary act of cradling your respective faces in your respective prongs. This is a fucking train-wreck. “Why,” you ask, injecting as much disbelief you can into the word, “are you like this?”

“I don’t know,” Dave groans. “I don’t know why I’m a goddamn geyser of self-pulverizing verbal snafus. Ask Rose. She's got a casefile as big as my head.”

At this point, you’d probably be able to double it. “That was the worst confession ever. You spent more time yelling about romance than actually doing it.”

“I learned from the best. Next thing you know, I’ll dish out some ill soliloquies about Cornet Trompa’s shapely ass.”

 _Please_ no. “Why do you feel the need to repeatedly force memories of that heinous affront to literature to the forefront of my puzzle sponge? Does it bring you joy to torment me? Is that what all this is? An elaborate plot to drive me to despair at the hands of a deceased author?”

“I mean, it was more like an elaborate plot to date you, but whatever floats your boat. Whatever validates Bernoulli’s principle. Science. Because we have chemistry. Fuck. Fuck, that was really, really bad. Shit. I hate myself.” He covers his face again. “Please just put me out of my misery.”

You let out an exasperated sigh that ends up _way_  more affectionate than intended, but it’s fine. Instead on dwelling on that, you tug at his prongs until you can actually look at him. “The last time I kissed someone, she was a corpse, so fair warning.”

Dave stares down at you, and you’re close enough that you can see his eyes widen the slightest bit. “The last time I kissed someone, I was a corpse,” he answers.

“Wow. You really know how to set the mood.”

“You started—”

You cut him off by pulling his mouth to yours, and looks like you finally have a way to shut him up. Until his shades knock against your nose, and wow, that’s really uncomfortable, but he pulls away and finally moves his fucking sunglasses so that they’re out of the way and he’s kissing you with an initiative that’s the slightest bit timid under the thrum of eager relief and it’s nice, it’s _really_ nice, and _why the fuck is the door sliding open holy shit_.

“See Terezi? I told you there was nothing to worry about, they’re fine.” With that! Entirely necessary interruption established! Fucking _Vriska_ takes in the scene with Terezi peering (sniffing?) over her shoulder, the scene being Dave flat on his back after tripping over his cape because you kind of immediately shoved him away in your haste to get your back to the opposite fucking wall. “You guys _are_ fine,” she drawls, a suspicious squint on her disgusting, repulsive, bile-inducing visage, “right?”

“I was absolutely fucking ecstatic before you shoved your hideous face in my line of sight!”

“Chill the fuck out, we were just making sure—”

Terezi Pyrope, more of a god among trolls than Serket could ever hope to be, tries to drag her terrible, obtuse moirail aside to say “yeah, you were right; they’re fine, so let’s just—”

“Come on, whatever was going on I’m sure one of these blockheads owes you some kind of—”

“No! Shut up! Get out! Get out, get out, _get out!_ ” Before Vriska can dig her obdurate heels in too deep, you shove her as hard as you can and slam the door shut.

You spend the next thirty minutes wrapped in Dave’s cape, yelling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [5/26/2016 2:17:13 PM] Stella: I feel like the second half of the chapter is you going like 'you know what let's put some levity in there' and me stomping after you with 'NO FUN ALLOWED'  
> [5/26/2016 2:18:48 PM] Air: me: hey stella can we crack some windows here? let the kids have some sunshine. maybe a bad joke or two  
> [5/26/2016 2:19:06 PM] Air: you: Atmosphere.  
> [5/26/2016 2:20:10 PM] Air: i’m honestly bewildered because  
> [5/26/2016 2:20:19 PM] Air: i Used to be Angsty Mc Angst person  
> [5/26/2016 2:20:30 PM] Air: who only ever wrote Tragic Serious Shit  
> [5/26/2016 2:20:34 PM] Air: and now it’s  
> [5/26/2016 2:21:09 PM] Air: Stella…. stell a please can we bring back the sunshine my crops are dying


	16. Homeostasis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Future May Be Indeterminate But Dating a Human Timepiece Tends to Help

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALRIGHT SO, THIS CERTAINLY, TOOK A LONG TIME. what can I say. we're apparently mirroring the Homestuck update schedule excepted adapted over a monthish instead of seven years.
> 
> SO, FIRST AND FOREMOST, [HERE'S A GOOGLE DRIVE LINK](https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3nrcugKG76AMmZrWUtxQjF5NjA) TO A NUMBER OF BONUS MATERIAL. one of the things we've been working on is a completely annotated version of this fic! you gotta actually download it to read everything because collapsed comments (indicated by a small grey triangle on the lower right of a comment box) won't expand on the online version, and you ALSO gotta hit 'enable editing' because otherwise the formatting's hecked as fuck, but trust me, it's worth it. it's got commentary, pesterlog citations, a couple little doodles by yours truly, and just.. a lot of words. It's formatted on ms word, if you hold the ctrl key and click you can use the table of contents to drop you to whatever chapter you want, and also, access external links! if you want to see everything, go to the 'review' tab and make sure the 'display for review' dropdown is on 'all markup'. or, if you just want to read a davekat novel minus commentary, you can set it to 'no markup'. so many options! what's also included is, for the curious reader, the first planning doc, the second planning doc, and the additional notes compiled for the sake of understanding pre/post retcon character interactions (with a couple coauthor commentary)
> 
> I am also, for those unaware, active on tumblr and [I've got a tag](http://obstinaterixatrix.tumblr.com/tagged/F\(A\)/chrono) for any post I've made about F(A) and its creative process. feel free to contact me! as you know by now, especially if you read the annotations, I Love To Talk. Also, please read the annotations. and tell us how you feel about them. we put a lot of work into them. I cited over a hundred pesterlog sections. I know because I organized annotations by emoji. there's a list right here, in the doc, but emojis break AO3 so you'll have to wait until this A/N on the doc to get the secret emoji glossary.
> 
> you might also notice that F(A) is showing up as part 1 of a series! now, nothing's set in stone but there's a possibility me and air might write a oneshot companion piece and I just wanted to leave interested readers a way to subscribe.
> 
> ALSO, [a certain tumblr user](http://agarbagecan.tumblr.com/) drew not just [ONE](http://agarbagecan.tumblr.com/post/146279787868) (!!) but [TWO](http://agarbagecan.tumblr.com/post/146428124718) (!!!!) THINGS FOR CHAPTER FOURTEEN!! WOW!! IT'S SUPER CUTE AND I'M SUPER LOVE
> 
> now, onto closing a/n stuff, I just have to say I would've never started outlining this fic if I wasn't inspired by [ >Dave: survive three years on this rock](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4392908/chapters/9973073) so I just have to link back to that fic. I also definitely used this [Karkat insult masterpost](http://amora-the-chinchilla.tumblr.com/post/22904091019/), this [ davekat analysis](http://merrywetherweather.tumblr.com/post/130732205838/), and this [Karkat analysis](http://memviv.tumblr.com/post/142316743149) as a reference. Also, this chapter FINALLY got finished a couple days ago after several major overhauls of the general outline and being 'almost done' for a month because I heard [this song](https://youtu.be/qFXzBoPFEJU) and ran to Air like COME ON WE GOTTA. so I hope if you ever hear this song again you'll think of me, lying down and quietly dying as I smash my face against a keyboard.
> 
> -Stella
> 
>  
> 
> Hey! I'm currently crying as I type this because I'm a very emotional soul, and writing this has been one of the best experiences of my writing career, and I am so glad I had this opportunity to write this fic with one of my best friends. I can't conceive of a universe where I could have created anything like this without Stella, and I'm just so happy that we get to share this with you. I'd like to thank you for sticking with us until the end. Thank you for reading.
> 
> Also Stella was trying to be subtle, which is her forte, but my talents lie more in mood whiplash and being Completely Forthright, so: we're considering writing a oneshot about our pals Alt Karkat and Dave, who you might remember from the Mobius Strip Reacharound when Stella and me played ourselves.
> 
> [I also have Art to share.](http://dragonomatopoeia.tumblr.com/post/146812600354/) My good friend Vada drew me this for my birthday! It's Kanaya and Rose like two minutes before the Yarn Incident that Kanaya tells Karkat about.
> 
> With that, I leave you to read the final installment of F(A), which makes the wordcount impressive enough to finally exceed the first harry potter book. We did it. We climbed this whole mountain.
> 
> \- Air

Having more social acumen than a braybeast incapable of finding its own ass, you’re well aware that there are some loose ends you need to address with a certain someone who isn’t Dave. A certain someone who valiantly stood between spidertroll and the otherwise inevitable end to your own personal timeline. After all, if Vriska was in immediate proximity for even another second, there would have been blood. From you. The sheer intensity of your rage would’ve ruptured each individual capillary in your body, and regardless of whatever biologically improbable bullshit you’ve got going on, you would’ve expired in an explosive blaze of nonpareil exsanguination. Thankfully it didn’t come to that because a certain someone saved your life, and you refuse to let this flagrant act of egregious magnanimity go unacknowledged.

Or, that’s what you tell Dave. The full extent of the gratitude you owe her is far too transcendent to ever be communicated in full.

“Terezi!” You shout, barging into one of the scourge sisters’ usual haunts. Like all of them, it’s more of a hastily assembled fort wrought from hastily scrawled notes and an aggregate of mystical tomes, so you can’t really tell whether anyone’s around until you prod the mess with a figurative stick. Unlike your last two attempts, Terezi’s actually there, so score one for Karkat. Of course, Vriska’s there too, so time to immediately rescind that score and shoot it off into the nearest decaying rectum of an ageless horrorterror, but whatever. It’s been long enough that you're calm. Mostly. Give it time.

“Do you mind?” Vriska glares at you over a stack of books, the entirety of her being sending off the official communiqué from Asscasket City’s municipal office that Mayor Serket clearly does.

“Shut up spidertroll, this doesn't concern you.” And isn't it just so satisfying to see how much she bristles at any implication that she’s not central to each and every social development taking place on this rock? The answer is: yes. Always. But you're not here to start shit, especially not in front of Terezi. So you march up to the troll you actually want to talk to, which is kind of hard when you have to carefully stomp between books, but you’re determined. There’s a long pause where you just kind of stare at each other, except Terezi’s directing the focus of her weird surprise noodle face just left of where you’re actually standing, and you still have no idea how she does that but you're not about to shoot off on a tangent like some asshole without a filter. You came here to tell her something specific and that’s exactly what you’re going to do. “I get it,” you say. “Or at least, I'm trying to.” After a longer, even more awkward pause, “Thanks.”

As expected, she immediately unsheathes her razor-sharp grin, and while usually there's nothing more you hate than playing into know-it-all seer bullshit there's enough genuine relief in her expression that it overrides that particular instinct. “You should know by now I’m always right, Karkat.”

“Yeah, whatever.” With that moment of emotional transparency checked off and squared away, you pivot on your heel and march right back out. “She’s too good for you, Serket,” you call over your shoulder. The door slides shut before she can offer any retort. Nice.

 

* * *

 

So, here’s a question you’d love an answer for: what the fuck do people do post-smooch? Like. Okay. Presumably you're dating Dave, that's a mutual decision, it’s been reviewed, cosigned, and notarized, except not because that would require the meteor’s residential legislation team shoving their cartilaginous nubs into your business and wow you would _really appreciate_ minimal interference from your ex-crush and your current… _someone’s_ ectotwin. So, the dating is as official as possible. That’s a thing. But, and this is utterly mortifying, you have no idea where to go from here. Which is ridiculous! You’ve devoured more romantic media in the span of a perigee than anyone on the meteor will in their entire lifetime! And! Considering this is a population in which _everybody’s_ lifespan is exponentially longer than yours! That’s saying something! But no, all your ‘expertise’ and you just drop the oblong leather apparatus like the most inept athlete to ever desecrate the playing field of Dave’s human sportsball.

You don’t know what to do from here, so you do what you usually do.

You go to Cantown.

Of course, by virtue of you and Dave having almost the exact same schedule, he’s there too, which you were… kind of hoping for, but also kind of not? The apprehension from earlier is back with a vengeance, a strange variation adapted purely for the sake of keeping your anxiety at a constant peak because you're physically incapable of not freaking out _apparently_.

“Oh hey,” Dave says, dragging you out of your thoughts. “You’re here.” And for a second it seems like that’s all he has to say, but after a too-long pause he can’t help but continue with “I mean, yeah, you’re usually here. Constant as the north star, except that means jack shit when we’re hurtling through space, so. More constant than the north star. That’s an achievement. You’re making centuries of literary comparison null and void. Don’t tell Rose— she’ll try to recreate every single poem as an ode to the North Kar. Actually, I think she’s already doing that with Kanaya. Sorry, dude. Art marches on.”

Well, fortunately— unfortunately? It looks like Dave doesn’t seem to know what to do either.

So. Business as usual, then.

Except _of course it isn’t_. Now, whenever he hands you a piece of chalk or a can you jolt at any incidental contact, and he does too. Everything you do feels like it fills up the space of the room, the clank of cans echoing too loud, and you’re excruciatingly aware of both Dave’s presence beside you and every fumbling move you make. And it’s not like you talk _that_ much during your collaborative municipal work, it’s just...

How is this so fucking awkward.

It takes a grand total of five minutes into the cacophonous silence for you to decide _hell no,_ you’re _not_ going through this whole elaborate song-and-dance routine of conversational avoidance. Wasn’t the whole point of talking it out so you could actually talk to each other? Square the fuck up Dave, it’s time for some verbal communication and it’s happening right the fuck now. You take a deep breath, you set aside your tools of municipal construction, and you turn towards him. “Alright, what gives?”

“That’s a weirdly specific-yet-vague question. So, what, you want an itemized list? Let’s see: first off, there’s this whole spirit of Christmas thing that afterschool specials try to enforce pretty religiously— no pun intended, but damn if it didn’t get said anyway so let’s pretend pun definitely intended— which means if you badger one of us humans around December then, depending on your luck, we might go shit, let’s be Santa—”

Slowly, through the course of this unnecessary babble, you raise a prong to cover his mouth. After a few seconds during which you weigh the merits of keeping it there for the rest of your natural life, he sticks out his tongue and what the fuck that was _really fucking gross_.

“Why are you so disgusting!” Your hand is practically _dripping_ with saliva and he has the audacity to laugh as you flail about like a dismembered grub. Which you are _not_ going to stand for, so you grab his cape and use it to wipe off the spit, tackling him when he tries to fuck off and dodge the consequences of his actions. The ensuing scuffle sends the two of you well outside the limits of Cantown, which is a terrible development. For him. Without the threat of collateral damage you can unleash the full potential of your wrath.

By the end of it you’ve successfully expressed the depths of your ire, but in the process you've gotten tangled in his cape— Dave can't stop laughing as your attempts to extricate yourself prove entirely unsuccessful. And while normally you'd have a lot to say about that, there’s a pleasant flush to his features as he untangles you, which is entirely distracting.

With that bout of utterly juvenile antics out of the way, you sit next to him, taking care to avoid any intricate chalk murals as you lean back against the wall. “So, we’re cool… right?”

“Shit man, we’re the coolest dudes in Paradox Space.”

“That’s a given.” You bump your shoulder against his, and despite concentrated effort, you can’t keep yourself from grinning. Dave Strider is, as always, an absolute parody of himself in the most predictable way possible. “You know what I mean, though.” A day of weird partial not-quite fighting was bad enough; you can’t imagine having to be awkward with Dave all the time. And wouldn't it just be just like you to fuck up a relationship immediately after it starts? Wouldn't it be your usual level interpersonal ingenuity to ruin one of the best friendships you've ever had in a stunning display of incompetence, to—

“Hey.”

In some odd, delayed transference of force, like kinetic energy passing through a line of phantom shoulders, he bumps you back.

“Sorry for being weird,” he says. “It’s not your fault. I just... don't know what to do with myself?” And while the subsequent lull is the perfect moment to spout off some undoubtedly thoughtless and ill-conceived interjection, by some rare stroke of self-control you manage to keep your mouth shut as Dave takes the time to gather himself. “Like,” he starts again, sounding out the word with extrinsic care, “we never really discussed boundaries flat out, and I don’t know what to do because the last thing I _want_ to do is step over the line and fuck things up, and I _think_ I know where the line is, but I’m not sure. I don’t want to be that asshole who’s like check me out, all over here on my side of the dodgeball court, but then someone comes up and goes, ‘dude what the fuck, why are you on our side? You’re not on this team,’ and now you’re out and banned from dodgeball olympics forever. Sorry champ, that trophy shelf is doomed to stay empty.”

You do your best to project nothing but a blank, reassuring patience, but despite your efforts he seems to pick up on the fact that you have absolutely no idea what he’s talking about.

“Fuck. You don’t have dodgeball. Or if you did, it’d probably be something like deathsphere. Okay so ignore all that, what I mean is…” He looks directly at you, his glasses doing nothing to attenuate the intensity of his gaze, and you almost miss when he continues, “I mean… I can kiss you now, right? I can hold your hand and just plant one right on your face?”

The sound that comes out of your mouth probably bears a striking resemblance to ‘partially swallowed screech’, mostly because that’s exactly what it is. “Do you want to!?”

“I mean, yeah? I’m pretty sure that was the whole point of me floundering about like a huge tool. But if you don’t want to—”

“No! I mean, yeah!” Fuck, why is this so hard? “If we’re going to be weird, nebulously red-dating then physical affection’s kind of a given, Dave. I know your experience with romance is probably laughable at best, but—”

He takes your hand.

He kisses your cheek.

He stares at your face for a second, and then he grins. “Nice.”

“That’s not fair.”

He shrugs, looking much too pleased with himself. “It’s what you signed up for.”

Which, alright, but still. “Give me my hand back, asshole, we need to work on Cantown.”

“Nah.”

You glare at him, making sure to keep your expression fixed at ‘thoroughly unamused’ as you uncaptchalogue a torn can label. Dave doesn’t let go of your hand. You uncaptchalogue a marker. Dave still doesn’t let go of your hand.

This sign’s going to be illegible, but it’s okay. You’ll get him back.

 

* * *

 

It’s kind of jarring to realize just _how much_ you’ve been holding back with Dave now that you don’t have to. It’s not that anything changes, not really— if you’re being honest, cuddling on the couch while watching romantic comedies is already pretty fucking flushed. Or, nebulously red. It’s been a long time coming. But at the same time, everything changes; there’s a raw sort of exploratory timbre to every action, a tentative accent, and it’s one thing to drape over each other with some vague awareness of inevitability while willfully looking the other way, but it’s another to be completely conscious of all the little gestures and what they mean. It’s hard not to get a rush with the knowledge that you know what he means when he sits a little closer than necessary, that he knows what you mean when you lean into him the slightest bit, that you’re both satisfied with this unspoken dialect of affection. But it’s fine, because whenever you reach for him, there’s… well. There’s still some hesitation, so you suppose you’re still holding back. But you don't have to, so you push through it, because fuck, you've come this far. And he meets you halfway, too, even when he’s working through stuff of his own. It’s obvious when he is, especially considering how movie night with human Dane Cook doesn’t actually involve paying attention to the movie.

This particular movie night has had minimal interference, so far. Dave’s been plastered to your side, actually staring at your husktop for what seems like enough time for suns to go supernova, and you’re pretty sure this is the longest he’s ever gone without talking over human Dane Cook’s vacuous gripes. In reality it’s been about ten minutes, but Good Luck Chuck’s raw terrible might is enough to create a singularity of Pure Shit that’s powerful enough to warp time. When he finally speaks up, it’s to say, “I think we should try something.”

“Something,” you repeat, raising an eyebrow. The poker face takes a lot of effort to maintain, but it’s worth it for Dave’s expression of dawning realization.

“Okay, in hindsight that came out a lot more suggestive than it was supposed to.” He buries his face into the crook of your neck. “Fuck, that was a line right out of your penny dreadfuls. Could’ve been a direct fucking quote. Literally. I’m so fucking smooth.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, it’d take sweeps for you to even approximate _the worst_ of my novels.”

Dave draws back enough to grasp at his chest with a scandalized gasp. “Now that’s cold. And worse, just factually inaccurate, I could spend hours refuting that frankly insulting claim. I could write a whole thesis, citations and everything. ‘Dave Strider is totally on par with the worst of garbage Alternian literature vis-à-vis everything that’s ever come out of Trompa’s mouth—’”

Without turning away from him, you reach behind to fish out the closest cushion you can throw. Dave catches it with his face and a muffled ‘pfuh’. “So, did you actually have a point?”

The cushion falls, tumbling to the floor; Dave must take some strange sort of inspiration from it because next thing you know he’s stretched out comfortably across your lap. “Okay, so you know how we were, like, making this huge deal out of figuring out what we want to take with us from our old stomping grounds and what we need to leave behind? I was thinking that maybe we should…” Dave trails off into an uncertain hum, and you wait for him to wrestle his thoughts into submission. “Okay. So I was just thinking that we should share what we want to keep, like a kind of communal, feel-good exchange of what makes us, us. Without the shitty baggage, I mean.” He inhales, then expels the store of air in a noisy huff. “It could be cool to sort out what we want to keep and not, you know, flush down the loadgaper. For instance, loadgaper is a troll thing I would never ask you to part with because it’s fucking fun to say.”

“And you're still saying it wrong.”

“Am not.”

In the interest of letting Dave get to the point instead of trapping the both of you in an endless loop of petty pedantry, you concede the argument with “It’s _my_ language.” And by concede, you mean conclude. You put the asshole definitively in his place.

Except Dave enjoys channeling all of the capriciousness of a spoiled cat and promptly fucks off, refusing to stay difinitively in his place. He scoffs and shoots back, “Gift of gab. Who knows, maybe I’m speaking in some off-shoot dialect. Maybe troll Texas exists and that’s what you’re hearing.”

“It doesn't.”

“Paradox Space, man. Anything’s possible.” Dave reaches up and tucks a bit of your hair behind your ear, which is a pretty useless gesture— it’ll fall back out of place in less than a minute, especially if he insists on having this conversation on different directional planes. He huffs out a laugh. “You know, for someone trying to get me back on track you sure are derailing a lot.”

You can think of a much better way to hijack the conversation and derail it entirely, but there was a point to this and you’ll be damned if you release your somewhat tenuous grip on it. “What did you have in mind?”

After some consideration, Dave does the best facsimile of a shrug he can while horizontal. “Y’know, I might not be the best person to ask. I’m not really much of an expert on what Earth had to offer; I don't really know what normal kids did. I mean, according to TV and shit, they got together, held hands, and pranced around like a bunch of sugarhigh assholes while chanting some ancient slam poetry about devastating epidemics.”

“That sounds like a waste of time.”

“Even if it’s with the Mayor?”

“That sounds like the greatest idea that’s ever come out of your shit-spewing chute.”

“Thought you’d say that.” There’s a grin on his face now, a little amused and incredibly fond, but before you formulate any sort of response the moment is cut short as human Dan Fogler interrupts to outline his “foolproof” plan to test the curse ostensibly besieging human Dane Cook. No words could possibly express the full extent of caustic antipathy held between those enclosure talons. You mute the movie. “Y’know,” Dave says, foregoing any pretense of affront, “maybe it’s for the best humanity can’t make any more cinematic abominations. This isn’t even the worst of it. Can you imagine just how much terrible shit we’ve been spared from? Every time you think Seth’s hit rock bottom, he’s got his shovel out and he’s ready to dig. It’s not even ironically bad. It’s just bad.”

Dave gets that look, the one that means he’s about to launch himself into a facetious ramble that will no doubt deteriorate into a series of inside jokes nobody understands. Which would be fine, but there’s something striking about the subject of ‘what could have been’ and you can’t help but pursue that train of thought.

“Do you ever think about how impossible all of this was?”

“What, how all these Seths got hired? Nah man, it’s like a curse carried on through the ages.”

“No, I mean—” Fuck, how do you even say something like this. “Out of everyone on Alternia, everyone on Earth, we’re the ones Paradox Space apparently decided not to obliterate from existence. Out of all of the possible permutations and infinite timelines, we’re the ones who made it, and it just seems…” You huff out a breath. “Impossible.”

There’s a part of you, traitorously sentimental, that still clutches at the concept of serendipity, and it’s a relief when Dave doesn’t laugh in your face— which, you knew he wouldn’t, but still. He actually seems to mull it over as he absently reaches for your hand, tangling your touch stumps together. “I guess if you think about it that way, yeah. But I mean… it’s kinda impossible for me to picture anything different. Which sounds weird for me to say, considering I’m the guy in charge of managing timeline shenanigans. Maybe it’s more like…” He trails off, turning his head so that he’s not looking directly up at you. “I know that there are infinite ways all this could’ve gone and billions of trolls that could’ve ended up right here with us, but out of everyone, we got saddled with you guys. I mean, Paradox Space is still the worst, but some things about this predestination bullshit aren’t so bad.”

That… wasn’t what you were expecting. It certainly was what you were thinking, but you didn’t expect Dave to mirror your superfluous romanticism with such candor. And judging from the way he tenses up, he didn’t either, but if he’s set on doing an elegant swan-dive into maudlin sincerity fuck if you’re not going to match him for a synchronized duet.

“It’s the same for me,” you blurt out, no finesse whatsoever. “I don’t know if I could ever come close to feeling this way for anyone else, it’s just… fuck, I wouldn’t call it fate, but isn’t it incredible? Despite the endless possibilities we’ve managed to stumble into something that _works_ and I’m…” well, you’re ridiculously flustered and your blood pusher’s just about ready to vibrate out of your chest, but that’s not what’s important. “I’m glad it’s you.”

“Wow,” he says, reaching up to brush your cheek in a tender caress. “That was really embarrassing.”

“Your face is embarrassing,” you shoot back, leaning into his hand the slightest bit.

“And you're the guy who’s fated to kiss it. Check and mate.”

“You can just shut the fuck up. Actually, can you? Are you physically capable of shutting the fuck up?”

“Why don’t you make me?”

The sheer excess of unrepentant corniness concentrated into the delivery of that line is enough to level mountains and split continents. Seriously, that’s the best he can do? But you’ve never stepped down from a challenge in your entire life, and you’ll be damned if you start now.

So you take it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [7/1/2016 1:09:08 AM] Stella: SO YOU KNOW HOW  
> [7/1/2016 1:10:05 AM] Stella: YOU FELT WHEN YOU HAD TO APPROXIMATE AMATEAUR RAP WITH ME FIGURATIVELY BREATHING OVER YOUR SHOULDER  
> [7/1/2016 1:10:14 AM] Air: YES  
> [7/1/2016 1:10:22 AM] Air: ALRIGHT POINT TAKEN  
> [7/1/2016 1:10:34 AM] Air: I WILL LOOK AT THE BEGINNIGN OF THE DOCUMENT  
> [7/1/2016 1:10:39 AM] Air: AND LEAVE YOU IN PEACE  
> [7/1/2016 1:11:03 AM] Stella: I WANT TO STRESS HOW THIS ISN'T BEING ACCUSATORY I'M SORRY FOR THE CAPS BUT I NEED TO YELL  
> [7/1/2016 1:11:25 AM] Stella: AM CONSTANTLY YELLING  
> [7/1/2016 1:11:27 AM] Air: I GOT YA  
> [7/1/2016 1:11:28 AM] Stella: WILL ALWAYS BE YELLING  
> [7/1/2016 1:11:37 AM] Air: I’m actually laughign really hard  
> [7/1/2016 1:11:39 AM] Air: sorry stella  
> [7/1/2016 1:11:51 AM] Stella: hwAURHGD


End file.
